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THE ISSUE OF MISSING PERSONS «HAS BECOME A TRADE»
[04:13 pm] 01 December, 2006

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 country», Arthur Sakunts noted. He thinks that
the two countries are «in a trade», 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, etc», Arthur Sakunts said.

On November 24-25 a regional conference has been held
in Vanadzor titled «Issues of missing persons in South
Caucasus». 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.