MOSCOW, July 14 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has received almost 30 thousand requests to search for missing people in connection with the conflict in Ukraine since February 2022, Boris Michel, the head of the organization’s delegation in Moscow, said in an interview.
«By the end of June, we had registered 29,800 requests for missing persons from their relatives, this applies to both military and civilians on both sides of the conflict. Since February 2022, we have been able to inform 9,100 families about the fate of their loved ones,» — he said in a conversation with the agency.
According to Michel, the organization is trying to provide as many answers as possible to numerous requests, but much more work remains to be done together with the authorities.
“This can take years — to find people, identify them, make sure that they can be transported to their homeland, buried,” he said in an interview with the agency.
As the head of the delegation explained, the missing could have been detained, injured, died, or even gone to another country, and it becomes very difficult to find them.
“It is therefore very important that people who are looking for their loved ones contact the ICRC so that we can register the missing,” Michel concluded.
The ICRC opened a central tracing agency office for issues related to the international conflict between Russia and Ukraine in March 2022 in Geneva. The Bureau acts as a neutral intermediary between the parties to the conflict and collects, systematizes and transmits information about the fate and location of military and civilians who are missing or separated from their families.
In February, the head of the Human Rights Council under the President of Russia, Valery Fadeev, held a meeting with the ICRC delegation, at which the parties discussed issues of humanitarian cooperation in the light of the SVO and agreed to continue cooperation, exchange of information and mutual support.
Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022. President Vladimir Putin called its goal “the protection of people who have been subjected to abuse and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years.” He noted that the special operation was a forced measure; Russia “was left no chance to do otherwise; security risks were created such that it was impossible to respond by other means.” According to him, Russia has been trying for 30 years to come to an agreement with NATO on the principles of security in Europe, but in response it has been faced with either cynical deception and lies, or attempts at pressure and blackmail, while the alliance, meanwhile, despite Moscow’s protests, is steadily expanding and approaching borders of the Russian Federation.