Talks on Missing Persons in Geneva

A meeting with facilitation of International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was held in Geneva this week to discuss mechanisms to clarify the fate of persons missing since the August, 2008 war.

Participants of the meeting from Tbilisi and Tskhinvali exchanged lists of missing persons, Georgian official and representative of the breakaway region’s authorities said.

Shota Utiashvili, head of the Georgian Interior Ministry’s information and analytical department, said that the Georgian side handed over list of 37 missing persons, including 25 civilians, 9 military servicemen and 3 policemen. “Unfortunately, there is no hope that they are alive,” Utiashvili told Civil.Ge on Thursday.

David Sanakoev, South Ossetian leader’s special envoy for human rights, said that the participants of the meeting made “a step forward” to clarify fates of the missing persons.

Russian officials also participated in the meeting. Two previous meetings on the same issue were held with the OSCE facilitation.

The issue is likely to be also addressed by Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, when he visits Tbilisi and Tskhinvali on February 26-27.

Hammarberg has been actively engaged in mediation between the sides to secure release of detained persons held on the both sides of the administrative border.

In December he has also offered an international oversight on investigation of missing persons, in particular in respect of those three Ossetian young men, who went missing since October, 2008.

The three men disappeared after coming across the Georgian-controlled territory. The South Ossetian side released a video footage, apparently shot by a mobile phone, showing these three men being shouted at and harassed by other men, claimed by Tskhinvali to be Georgian law enforcement officers. Tbilisi denies that.

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