Committee on Missing Persons in NE, Syria begins preparing a database on them

The Autonomous Administration announced the formation of the Committee on Missing Persons in North and East Syria on August 29, and stated that the decision came in response to the United Nations General Assembly resolution issued on May 23 to establish the "Independent Institution for Missing Persons in Syria, to clarify the fate and whereabouts of all missing persons."

Non-governmental organizations estimate the number of missing persons since the beginning of the Syrian crisis in March 2011 at more than 100 thousand people.

Regarding the work of the committee, the majority of whose members are lawyers, its spokesman Khaled Omar said that the committee’s work will focus primarily on preparing a database on missing persons within the regions of NE, Syria and in Syria in general.

In preparing the database, the committee will rely on the families of the missing persons or those close to them, who will have to visit the committee’s headquarters and its branches, which will be opened in the future, and their locations will be announced at a later time, according to Khaled Omar.

He noted that the process of searching for missing persons and knowing their fate will take place according to certain mechanisms related to their status, whether they are alive or killed, and according to the areas where they went missing, whether inside NE, Syria, areas under the control of the Damascus government, or areas occupied by Turkey.

Khaled Omar drew attention to the fact that their committee will look into the fate of the Yazidis who were kidnapped by ISIS mercenaries from Shengal province  on August 3, 2014, and thousands of them were transferred to the areas it was occupying in Syria at the time.

The spokesman for the committee, whose headquarters is located in the city of Qamishlo and will have branches in the cities of Hasakah, Kobani, Raqqa, and Manbij, and is likely to expand in the coming stage, stated that they have not yet determined the start date for work, but he said that they are waiting for the independent institution concerned with missing persons in Syria to begin, to clarify the fate and whereabouts of the committee. All the Missing" in its work to coordinate with it and some institutions concerned with the missing.

T/ Satt.

ANHA