Kosovo: ICRC Hands Over Missing Persons Database Software

Kosovo: ICRC Hands Over Software For Management Of Missing Persons Data

Pristina (ICRC) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) today handed over to the Government Commission for Missing Persons its database software designed for the management, archiving and standardizing of data relating to missing persons. The tool facilitates the identification of human remains through matching of ante-mortem and post-mortem data.

The software will be owned by the Government Commission and managed jointly with the Department of Forensic Medicine, which operates within the Ministry of Justice. Both the commission and the department will keep the database up to date by entering the data available to them on missing persons and human remains before and after identification.

The ICRC's public list of persons who went missing in Kosovo between 1 January 1998 and 31 December 2000 will be included in the database.

"With this handover, the Government Commission is taking a positive step towards setting up a central registry for missing persons," said Agim Gashi, the head of the ICRC Mission in Pristina. "The sustainability of the process will depend on the allocation of the necessary resources, to which both institutions committed."

Apart from making the software available, the ICRC will provide training in data entry and database management.

The ICRC's ante-mortem/post-mortem database software has already been handed over to around 50 recipients such as national authorities, NGOs, scientific organizations and academic institutions, in Latin and North America, the Middle East and the Caucasus.

Of the 6,024 persons reported by their families to the ICRC as missing in connection with the events in Kosovo, 1,775 remain unaccounted for.

ENDS

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