THE ISSUE OF MISSING PERSONS "HAS BECOME A TRADE"

A1+
[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.