Poznan Must Not Forget Fate of Balkan Missing

This week in Poznan, in western Poland, the countries of the Berlin Process, an initiative designed to foster stronger ties between the Western Balkans and the European Union, are meeting to review progress since their last meeting a year ago in London.

There will be positive news as far as the region's effort to account for missing persons is concerned. Although governments in the Balkan region have accounted for more than 70 per cent of the 40,000 persons who went missing in the decade after 1991, 12,000 people remain unaccounted for.

The effort to resolve their fate must be maintained so that their families can know what happened to them and so that justice is served. Lasting peace can only be built on a foundation of justice, and justice will only be upheld if every possible step is taken to establish the truth regarding those who went missing.

At the last meeting in London, the leaders of the Berlin Process participating countries signed a Joint Declaration, promising to intensify multilateral cooperation to account for the missing.

The signing of a Framework Plan followed last November, at the Headquarters of the International Commission on Missing Persons, ICMP, in The Hague, by representatives of the region's governments, who formally undertook to work together as the regional Missing Persons Group, MPG.

Since then, the MPG has carried forward the work of making fully operational the Database of Active Missing Persons Cases from the Armed Conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. Through the Database, countries are sharing information, which is crucial to a joint effort to locate and identify the remaining missing persons.

Using the Database, MPG members can review, verify and reach agreements on missing persons cases that are...