The Croatian Veterans' Ministry and the ICMP today signed an agreement on the participation of Croatia in the project: Database of Open Missing Persons Cases from the Armed Conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. The agreement was signed by the Assistant Minister responsible for the Administration for the Detained and the Missing at the Ministry of Croatian War Veterans, Stjepan Sucic, and ICMP Head of Western Balkans program, Matthew Holliday.
"Croatia's decision to participate in the project is a major step forward in terms of strengthening regional cooperation to account for around 12,000 people who are still missing," Holliday said.
He explained that the database would ensure that all relevant information was gathered in one place, eliminating duplication of records and duplication of effort and ensuring that all the information that is known about individual cases was systematised and accessible to the appropriate authorities.
"The Administration for the Detained and the Missing has identified this application as a useful tool and excellent solution for keeping information about missing persons available in real time to all stakeholders in the process," Sucic said.
He emphasised that Croatia's participation in the project was fully supported by the families of persons gone missing in Croatia.
"Our shared objective is to use this database for further improvements in the search for missing persons and in seeking to finally resolve this important issue for our society in general," Sucic said.
The regional database will contain data relevant to locating and identifying missing persons from the regional conflict, including the missing person’s first name, father’s name, last name, date of birth, place of birth, date of disappearance, place of disappearance, municipality of disappearance, identification (if any, date), and countries in which the disappearance has been registered.
The ICMP has already concluded agreements with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Montenegro on their participation in the project. The ICMP expects to sign such an agreement with Serbia in the first half of 2017.