FROM 2006 ICRC TO INTENSIFY WORK ON SEARCH OF THE MISSINGS IN ARMENIA,
NKR AND AZERBAIJAN

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 17. ARMINFO. From 2006, the International Committee
of Red Cross (ICRC) is to enlarge the activity on collection of
life-time information about missing citizens of Armenia, Nagorno
Karabakh and Azerbaijan.

The ICRC Armenian mission delegate Catherine Patronoff informed
ARMINFO’s reporter that the intensifying may help in identifying the
remains of bodies of the deceased during a conflict. The information
collection will be conducted in close cooperation with the State
committees on POWs, hostages and the missings affairs, as well as with
the Armenian Red Cross Association, Patronoff noted.

To remind, the renewed list of the missings transferred by the ICRC to
Armenia’s, NKR and Azeri authorities in Feb 2004 includes 3165 names,
419 of them are Armenians. In Jan 2005, the ICRC transferred the
parties a Memorandum appealing to clear up the fate of the
missings. The document supposes a number of methods necessary for
giving the required information, as well for conducting exhumation and
identification procedures of remains, and rendering assistance to the
missings families, she noted.

Patronoff also noted that 652 Armenian and Azeri POWs and civil
persons have been released at the ICRC mediation since the beginning
of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. According to its mandate, the ICRC since
1992 have assisted to Armenia’s, NKR and Azeri authorities in
organizing the return of POWs to their motherland.