Second Meeting on Missing Persons Held

Representatives from Tbilisi, Moscow and Tskhinvali met on April 29 under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in frames of coordination mechanism trying to clarify the fate of persons missing since the August, 2008 war.

The meeting was held in a tent situated between the villages of Okona and Knolevi on the breakaway South Ossetia’s administrative border.

Participants discussed “concrete and coordinated steps that need to be taken to provide the families of missing persons with relevant information on their loved ones,” ICRC said in a statement.

The first meeting of this type was held in Switzerland on February 23. During that first meeting the participants shared preliminary list of 47 missing persons.

During the April 29 meeting the participants exchanged additional information on missing persons, adding one new case to the list and “positively” resolving one case of missing person, ICRC said.

"All sides expressed an interest in improving the coordination of forensic activities in order to facilitate the identification of human remains. Compliance with international standards for exhuming and identifying remains was especially emphasized," Megan Bassendale, an ICRC forensic adviser, who attended the meeting, said.
 
Shota Utiashvili, head of information and analytical department at the Georgian Interior Ministry, who participated in the meeting, said that issues related with identification of human remains and their reburial was the main topic of the discussion.

He told Civil.Ge on April 30, that total of 35 persons are listed among unaccounted persons on the Georgian side.

Utiashvili also said that it was agreed to carry out forensic activities into 14 cases to identify human remains, whose places of burial are known.

“We would like to request if anyone possesses any information about the missing persons, to contact the Interior Ministry,” he said, adding that follow-up meeting would also be held, but no date was yet set.

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