RED CROSS CONTINUING WORK ON DATABASE OF KARABAKH MISSING
news.am
Aug 24, 2011
Armenia
The International Committee of the Red Cross has registered 4,575
people who went missing during the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict
over Karabakh.
The ICRC’s protection coordinator for Azerbaijan, Sylvie Graenicher,
told Trend news agency that the number of missing people might change.
The ICRC has collected information about them from their family members
in an ante-mortem database. This work has been done in collaboration
with the Red Crescent Society of Azerbaijan. Information about 3,631
missing people has been accumulated so far.
Graenicher said ante-mortem information about several other people
was being gathered at the moment.
“A licence agreement between the ICRC and Azerbaijan’s State
Commission for Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing People was
signed in January. In line with this agreement, a special database
of missing people, created by the ICRC, will be handed to the State
Commission. In future months, the first 150 questionnaires will be
submitted to the State Commission for inclusion in the database. The
entire information on 3,631 missing people will be handed to the
State Commission for phased inclusion in the database,” she said.
The database is designed to bring together all the information about
the missing in order to help clear up their fate in future.
Graenicher said differences remained between the lists of the ICRC
and the State Commission.
“A few years ago, these lists were very different. The difference is
that the ICRC gathers information only with the help of the families of
the missing, while the State Commission is able to collect information
from other sources. Then these lists are compared and differences are
removed. Now this gap has diminished and I hope it will disappear or
be reduced to a minimum in a couple of years,” she said.
No request for return of POWs
The ICRC has not received any requests from any of the conflicting
parties for the return home of prisoners of war or civilians held in
Armenian and Azerbaijani captivity, Sylvie Graenicher said.
The ICRC does not intervene in talks on the return of prisoners,
assisting only when there is a request from the conflicting parties
and with their consent, she said.
“If the conflicting sides ask us about the return of prisoners of
war and civilians in captivity, we assist in carrying out this process.
The repatriation of detainees is carried out only if they agree to
return home. As of now, the ICRC has received no request from the
conflicting parties on the return home of military servicemen and
civilians in captivity,” Graenicher continued.
Armenian armed forces captured Azerbaijani Army Junior Sergeant Roman
Huseynov on 27 August 2010.
Azerbaijan currently holds three Armenians POWs and five members of
one Armenian family in captivity.
Earlier, three Armenian servicemen in Azerbaijani captivity were sent
to a third country at their own request.
From: A. Papazian