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Sarajevo 22 September 2025 — On the International Day of Peace, the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) has launched the Geography of Genocide, an interactive map that allows families of the missing and the general public to see where victims of the Srebrenica Genocide were buried in primary mass graves and later moved by perpetrators to secondary and tertiary graves in an attempt to cover-up the Genocide.
This project, funded by the European Union, is an important step forward in preserving truth and honoring the memory of the victims. The EU financial support has been crucial in enabling ICMP to develop and launch this innovative tool, making it easy for families and the public to access and use.
The effort to conceal these crimes was uncovered through meticulous investigations carried out by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), prosecutors from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH), and the BIH Missing Persons Institute, with the engagement of Srebrenica families and ICMP. ICMP’s pioneering use of a data-driven process that incorporates forensic anthropology, archaeology and the groundbreaking use of DNA, starting in 1999, was instrumental in reassociating the disarticulated human remains recovered from hundreds of mass graves across Eastern Bosnia. On average, the human remains of individual victims have been found in at least five different mass grave locations often as much as 50 kilometers apart.
“I would like to thank the EU, in particular, Ambassador Soreca, Head of Delegation and EU Special Representative in BiH, for their generous support to this project,” said ICMP Director-General, Kathryne Bomberger. “The map shows the connection between primary and secondary graves; it shows where victims’ remains were recovered; and it presents in detail the stages of forensic examination and DNA-led identification. Families can also search by name to track the recovery and identification of their missing relatives,” she added.
Data gathered by ICMP was used in more than 30 criminal trials, at the ICTY, including the Karadzic and Mladic trials and in domestic courts to provide irrefutable evidence of the identity of the victims, thus confirming the crime of Genocide and the effort to cover it up.
To date, more than 90 percent of the more than 8,000 victims of the Srebrenica Genocide have been identified, and the search continues to find the remaining mass and clandestine sites.
The Geography of Genocide reflects the political and scientific advances that made this possible, showing how individual fragments of evidence have been assembled into a comprehensive and factual account of events.
This resource is intended for families of the missing and for researchers, educators, policymakers, and the wider public. It is designed to uphold truth, counter denial, and highlight the need for continued institutional and political commitment in addressing the complex issue of missing persons.
The map is now a permanent feature of the Srebrenica Memorial Center, with the online version ensuring broad international access.
For more information and to explore the Geography of Genocide online, visit https://srebrenica.icmp.int/
About ICMP
ICMP is a treaty-based intergovernmental organization with Headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands. Its mandate is to secure the cooperation of governments and others in locating missing persons from conflict, human rights abuses, disasters, organized crime, migration and other causes and to assist them in doing so. Created at the 1996 G-7 Summit to address the issue of persons missing as a consequence of the conflicts in the Western Balkans, ICMP has been working globally since 2004.
