More than 30 thousand Ukrainian citizens went missing during the war

Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, 30,000 Ukrainians have gone missing. Such data was presented by the International Commission on Missing Persons.

The commission’s general director, Katherine Bomberger, tells Suspilne:

“Currently it’s about 30,000 people. And that’s just civilians. And right now I’m not sure who exactly that figure includes. We’re trying to understand what those numbers are and what they mean. There’s a lot of different circumstances that could be included here, whose people have gone missing.”

This could include living people separated from their families, as well as those in incommunicado detention, Bomberger said. These may include those killed during hostilities, whose bodies have not been identified and whose families do not know where they are. These may also be illegally deported children. The head of the international commission claims that these numbers continue to grow:

“Before the invasion, there had already been a large number of missing people since 2014. And I first came here in 2014, after the discovery of mass graves in Slavyansk. But these numbers, although high, were not as huge as they are today. Now they are much more higher and continue to grow.”

Bomberger says this is indeed a serious concern. And it is extremely important that states take on this responsibility in accordance with the rule of law, since this evidence must be provided to an international court or a court in Ukraine, or a court operating under universal jurisdiction:

“It is therefore very important that all these facts are verified through the judicial process and that these investigations are carried out by judicial institutions.”

Earlier, Leonid Timchenko, deputy head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, said that the department currently has data on 26 thousand missing persons under special circumstances. Of these, 11 thousand are civilians, about 15 thousand are military. About 9 thousand relatives have already received extracts from the Unified Register of Missing Persons under Special Circumstances.

On May 5, 2023, the Commissioner for Persons Missing in Special Circumstances, Oleg Kotenko, stated that the Ukrainian authorities are looking for more than 7 thousand missing people, of which 15% are civilians. As of the end of May 2023, Ukraine was aware of approximately 24 thousand Ukrainian citizens who went missing during Russia’s armed aggression, reported Ombudsman Dmitry Lubinets.

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