Ms. Kathryne Bomberger, ICMP Director-General.
The Hague – The German Federal Foreign Office has provided ICMP with a grant of 1,178,445 Euros to continue its assistance in helping the Iraqi authorities address the vast and complicated issue of locating and identifying missing and disappeared persons from decades of conflict, human rights abuses and other causes. This grant builds upon earlier contributions made between 2010-2017 for Iraq and allows ICMP to expand its work through 2018.
Between 250,000 and one million people have gone missing in Iraq from decades of conflict and human rights abuse. Although the country has taken steps to address the issue through legislation and the establishment of institutions, including signing the International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance in 2010, these efforts have been severely constrained by continuing and chronic instability. The inability to deal adequately with the missing persons issue has undermined attempts to address the legacy of past and present violence. Failure by the authorities to deal with missing persons and mass graves in liberated areas is perpetuating and exacerbating grievances.
With this new funding, ICMP will continue its efforts to work with Iraq’s regional authorities to help them build sustainable institutions capable of locating and identifying missing persons regardless of the national, ethnic, or religious origin of the missing person, and to secure the rights of all surviving families of the missing to truth, justice and reparations. The grant will specifically include efforts to improve the technical capabilities of these institutions, including the provision of cutting-edge forensic and data systems capabilities.
“This important contribution will allow us to work across the country at both a national and provincial level to ensure that sustainable measures are put in place that allow for improved cooperation and which enhance Iraq’s technical capabilities,” ICMP Director-General Kathryne Bomberger said today. “ICMP is enormously grateful for the continued support from the German government. Our program is consistent with the objectives of Germany and other international partners in Iraq, and will have a direct and positive impact on securing the rights of families of the missing.”
The new program started in November 2017 and will continue until the end of December 2018.
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ICMP is a treaty-based international organization based in The Hague, the Netherlands. Its mandate is to secure the cooperation of governments and others in locating and identifying 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.
