The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) issued on Friday a statement in which it “welcomed the appointment of members of Lebanon National Commission for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared, who have been sworn in before President Michel Aoun.
“These appointments underline recognition of the importance of resolving the issue of missing persons as an opportunity to assert state responsibility, and thus enhance confidence in public institutions on this issue,” said ICMP Director-General Kathryne Bomberger.
“As the only international organization working exclusively on the issue of missing persons, ICMP stands ready to support Lebanon’s efforts to address this issue in an effective and impartial way, and to help families of the missing to secure truth and justice,” she added.
The statement noted that “family associations and civil society have worked for years to keep the missing persons issue in public view, and together with NGOs they have called on the authorities to launch a sustained and comprehensive process to account for the missing.”
“In 2019, Lebanon passed Law 105 for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons, and the appointment of the members of the Commission marks the next important step in addressing the issue,” the statement went on saying.
The statement said that the ICMP is “a treaty-based intergovernmental organization with Headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands. Its mandate is to secure the cooperation of governments and others in locating missing persons from conflict, human rights abuses, disasters, organized crime, irregular migration and other causes and to assist them in doing so. It is the only international organization tasked exclusively to work on the issue of missing persons.”
According to the statement, It has helped governments to “develop legislation to enable families of the missing to assert their rights; and has assisted governments in the excavation of more than 3,000 mass graves using advanced forensic techniques, and in the scientific identification of tens of thousands of missing persons from around the world, using cutting-edge DNA methods.”