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Kyiv, 29 May 2024: Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko and International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) Director-General Kathryne Bomberger signed a Memorandum of Cooperation today in Kyiv.
The agreement will make it possible for ICMP to expand its assistance to support Ukraine in locating tens of thousands of missing persons from the ongoing war and investing their disappearance in line with international standards. The Ministry of Interior is the lead body in Ukraine for addressing the issue of missing persons under special circumstances.
Under the agreement, the ICMP will support the efforts of the Ministry of Interior to collect DNA reference samples from Ukrainian families of the missing with their informed consent. DNA profiles from these samples can be matched in a dedicated database with DNA profiles taken from unidentified human remains. ICMP pioneered this mass identification method in the former Yugoslavia, where it has helped the authorities to account for more than three quarters of the 40,000 people who went missing in the conflicts of the 1990s.
ICMP will also provide training for personnel from the Expert Service of the Interior Ministry and higher education institutions that provide training to the police. In addition, it will help the Interior Ministry to build its capacity to manage data on missing persons that has been uploaded to the Unified Register and the Register of Human Genomic Information. This will include training in the use of the ICMP’s Integrated Data Management System (iDMS).
ICMP, currently supports Ukraine in conducting large-scale human identifications at its DNA laboratories in The Hague, the Netherlands, and will continue to provide support to help Ukraine simultaneously build a largescale DNA testing capability that incorporates a DNA-led process of identifications. ICMP is also providing immediate support to the the DNA laboratories of the Expert Service and the Secretariat of the Commissioner for Persons who have Gone Missing under Special Circumstances, including equipment and specialized chemical supplies.
Ihor Klymenko stressed that Ministry of Interior will play an effective role for accounting for missing persons. “As a state we have obligation to account for the missing. This agreement is a first step in a long road of our cooperation. For families of the missing – this is a situation that is excruciating, so we have a moral obligation not to delay the action.”
Speaking after today’s signing ceremony, Kathryne Bomberger noted that, “An effective missing persons process requires scientific expertise and database technology, it has to be supported by a legislative and institutional framework, and it must have the support of families of the missing. Ukraine has many resources already in place and the authorities have made an enormous effort – under the most challenging conditions – to deploy these resources in a timely and effective way. There are gaps, however, and ICMP can help to fill these gaps. Our DNA laboratories in The Hague are already at the disposal of the Ukrainian authorities and we are expanding our training and technical support for Ukrainian partners.”
About ICMP
ICMP is a treaty-based intergovernmental organization with Headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands. Its mandate is to secure the co-operation of governments and other authorities in locating persons missing as a result of conflicts, human rights abuses, disasters, organized violence and other causes and to assist them in doing so.
ICMP helped to identify victims of Flight MH17 in July 2014. It subsequently recommended legislative and institutional measures to enhance Ukraine’s capacity to account for missing persons. Many of these recommendations had already been implemented before the 2022 invasion. In April 2022, the authorities in Ukraine requested urgent ICMP assistance. ICMP deployed staff in the Spring of 2022, opened an office in Kyiv in July, and launched a comprehensive program to help the Ukrainian institutions account for those who are missing as a result of the Russian invasion.
ICMP’s Ukraine Program is supported by the European Union and the governments of Canada, Germany, Norway, and the United States.
