The Issue of Missing Persons has become a Trade
00:00, December 2, 2006 | News | The Rights of Conflict Victims
The country does nothing in order to clarify the fates of the missing persons. Moreover, when their families spare no effort in order to find their relatives, the country hinders their work.
This statement was made Arthur Sakunts, the head of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly of Vanadzor, during the press conference titled “Issue of missing persons in South Caucasus”.
“The families are given a piece of paper saying that their son is missing in action. When they try to find information, they fail. Finally they are forced to turn to court in order to declare the person dead and settle social problems”, the lawyer says.
According to the RA Defense Ministry, 213 soldiers are missing in action after military operations. 130 of them have already been declared dead by the court. «In order to find the missing people we need to find out where they were lost and how. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan claim their missing soldiers are in the other countryե, Arthur Sakunts noted. He thinks that the two countries are «in a tradeե, as they assure they will find the missing soldiers of the other as soon as the other does the same.
In Georgia the number missing persons is 500, and in Azerbaijan – 4998. «The Azeris were frank enough to tell us that the number includes people who have not participated in military operations but have died of freezing, etcե, Arthur Sakunts said.
On November 24-25 a regional conference has been held in Vanadzor titled «Issues of missing persons in South Caucasusե. Representatives of Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and NKR participated in it. The participants have worked out a joint statement to the heads of the three countries and international organizations: the UN, the EU, the OSCE, etc.
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