Missing and death persons

Armed conflict situations may lead to larhe numbers of human casualties and grave social and administrative disruption. Tracing the missing and identifying the dead are crucial to maintain or restore basic human rights and responsible relief activities. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has an international mandate on such activities in situations of conflict. The efficiency of its activities relies on other humanitarian organizations recording and channeling relevant information on the missing to the ICRC. In times of peace, various international conventions prohibit and monitor enforced disappearances.

Missing Persons

The ICRC defines missing persons are “those whose whereabouts are unknown to their families and/or who, on the basis of reliable information, have been reported missing in connection with an international or non-international armed conflict, a situation of internal violence or disturbances or any other situation that may require the intervention of a neutral and independent intermediary.”

Missing persons may either be dead or alive. This uncertainty is in itself an element of great vulnerability and threat. If alive, they may either be secretly detained or separated from their relatives by sudden displacement, disaster, or accident. In both cases, they shall be granted the protection offered by international humanitarian law to whatever category they could belong to: civilian, displaced, detainee, prisoner of war, wounded and sick, dead, or any other.

The issue of missing persons is very political since belligerents often manipulate the number of missing persons or deliberately withhold information on the latter in order to put pressure on opposing parties, terrorize and control the population, or weaken detainees for interrogation purposes.

The Geneva Conventions spell out the obligations for parties to international armed conflicts to take every possible measure to elucidate the fate of missing persons, to search for persons who have been reported as missing by the adverse party and to record the information in respect of such persons.

• If a person is missing because of population movements in times of armed conflict, family contact should be restored as soon as possible;
• If persons are missing because of detention or hospitalization by the enemy then their families and authorities must be rapidly informed;
• detaining authorities are also under an obligation to answer inquiries about protected persons;
• Parties to the conflict and international organizations shall take all possible measures to ensure that families know the fate of their relatives;
• The ICRC has a Central Tracing Agency, which helps to find missing persons once information on such persons has been collected.

Prohibition of enforced disappearances

• The United Nations Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance defines the systematic practice of forced disappearances as a crime against humanity. This practice constitutes a violation of the right to the respect of human dignity, the right to liberty and security of the person, and the right not to be subjected to torture, and is a grave threat to the right to life.
• The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance aims at preventing enforced disappearances, which are considered a crime and, in certain circumstances as a crime against humanity. It affirms the right of any person not to be subjected to enforced disappearance, as well as the right of victims to justice and reparation.
• Customary International Humanitarian Law affirms that enforced disappearance is prohibited, both in international and non-international armed conflicts. It also stipulates that each party to the conflict must take all feasible measures to account for persons reported missing as a result of armed conflict and must provide their family members with any information it has on their fate.
• The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court states that the systematic practice of enforced disappearances constitutes a crime against humanity. It defines enforced disappearance as “the arrest, detention or abduction of persons by, or with the authorization, support or acquiescence of, a State or a political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge that deprivation of freedom or to give information on the fate or whereabouts of those persons, with the intention of removing them from the protection of the law for a prolonged period of time.”

The Dead

In international armed conflicts states have the duty to search for the dead and shall also try to collect information in order to identify the dead. International humanitarian law also prescribes that the dead must be respected and given decent burial and that gravesites shall be marked in order to facilitate access to and protection of the graves. Furthermore, the remains of the dead shall be respected and returned to their relatives, when possible.

The provisions of international humanitarian law on the dead and their gravesites apply during and after an armed conflict or in a situation of occupation.
Also in the context of non-international armed conflicts, the duty to search for the dead exists. Parties to non-international armed conflicts remain bound by general international humanitarian law obligations, such as the prohibition of outrages upon personal dignity and cruel and inhuman treatment.

Other rules and regulations

• customary international humanitarian law provides further rules and regulations.