Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, escalating the invasion that began in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and took control of the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
In early April 2022, mass graves were discovered in Bucha, Irpin, and Makariv (Kyiv oblast). Throughout 2022 and into 2023, new sites were discovered, including in Izium (Kharkiv oblast) Mariupol, and Lyman (Donetsk oblast) indicating a pattern of activity and the probable existence of many more gravesites containing unidentified human remains in territory occupied by Russian forces.
More than 12.3 million Ukrainians have been displaced, inside the country or abroad; many have been separated from their families or have relatives who are missing. As of October 2023, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine (MIA) reported that around 28,000 missing persons had been registered in the Unified Register of Missing Persons.
09 May 2022
Guide for Families of the Missing in Ukraine
24 Feb 2023
ICMP’s Ukraine Program
On 5 April 2022, the Prosecutor General confirmed that ICMP’s program could be implemented within the framework of the Memorandum of Understanding between the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) and Ukraine’s Commission on Missing Persons, signed in Kyiv on 22 July 2021. In mid-April 2022, ICMP and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine exchanged diplomatic notes to the same effect, also strengthening provisions for ICMP’s direct operational engagement on the ground.
ICMP set up the Program and established an office in Kyiv in July 2022.
ICMP has developed a five-year Ukraine Strategy to support the country in accounting for large numbers of missing persons in complete alignment with judicial standards.
In August 2023, ICMP and the National Police of Ukraine (NPU) signed a Protocol enabling the Main Investigation Department of the NPU to use the Integrated Data Management System (iDMS) developed by ICMP to process data to locate, reunite and identify people who have gone missing as a result of the Russian invasion. The signing of the Protocol marked the beginning of an ICMP campaign to collect data from Ukrainian families residing outside the country who have missing relatives from the war.
ICMP, the Lviv Regional Bureau of Forensic Medical Examination and the Danylo Halytsky National Medical University signed a Memorandum on Cooperation in September 2023. This facilitates an educational and scientific-practical partnership to ensure the quality of medical education, in particular forensic medicine, continuous professional development of specialists, consultation, and the exchange of scientific information.
After 30 September 2023, the responsibility for handling cases involving missing persons under special circumstances was moved from the Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, in cooperation with the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Following these adjustments, ICMP established cooperation with the newly appointed entity. In October 2023, ICMP signed a Memorandum on Scientific, Technical and Research Cooperation with the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine and a Memorandum on Cooperation with the Ministry of Health of Ukraine.
The agreement with the Ministry of Justice supports efforts to enhance investigations into missing persons cases, including a DNA-led identification process and other techniques used to locate missing persons in cooperation with the relevant domestic institutions. The agreement with the Ministry of Health creates a framework for ICMP to assist the Ministry with capacity building and to provide support in the field of forensic science, particularly, in regard to forensic anthropology, forensic odontology, data collection and processing, and effective case management.
The overall objectives of ICMP’s Ukraine Program are:
- Supporting further development and strengthening of Ukraine’s technical capacity for a dedicated and sustainable impartial investigation into missing persons cases to a level in which evidence can be provided in an international court, starting with the professional recovery of mortal remains, documentation of the crime scene, determining the cause and manner of death, and facilitating a DNA- led process of identification that includes large-scale genetic kinship matching between the family of the missing and the missing person, and concluding with irrefutable evidence of the identity of the missing that can be linked to the crime scene in tens of thousands of cases;
- Supporting the meaningful participation of Ukraine’s civil society and family associations, especially those which are women-led, in the missing persons process to strengthen the state’s accountability and secure the rights of families of the missing;
- Facilitating intergovernmental and in-country cooperation and coordination of efforts among state institutions, civil society, international organizations, and the diplomatic community to address the issue of missing persons in an effective way;
- Advocating and raising public awareness in Ukraine and among policymakers globally regarding the issue of missing persons, highlighting its indispensable role in security, conflict-prevention, peace building and international justice;
- Supporting the strengthening of Ukraine’s institutional capacity and legislative framework to account effectively for missing persons and secure the rights of all families of the missing, regardless of circumstances of disappearance, nationality, or any other factor, to truth, justice and reparations.
Historical Context
In May 2014, Human Rights Watch issued a report documenting widespread human rights violations in Eastern Ukraine.
In July 2014, the Ukrainian authorities excavated a mass grave in the town of Sloviansk. Also, in July 2014 a Malaysian airliner departing from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport was shot down by Russian-controlled armed formations while flying over Eastern Ukraine. All 298 passengers and crew were killed and the international effort to collect and identify the bodies and arrange for burial were obstructed by armed men on the ground.
At the invitation of the Ukrainian Government and under the terms of its standing agreement with INTERPOL to provide assistance in case of disasters, ICMP deployed with INTERPOL at the MH17 crash site to assist in recovering victims’ remains that were subsequently transported to the Netherlands.
In September 2014, at the invitation of the Prosecutor General, ICMP conducted a fact-finding mission to Kyiv, following which ICMP recommended that the authorities, establish a central entity to coordinate missing persons investigations, create a mechanism for collecting and processing data on missing persons, build the capacities of civil society, in particular the families of the missing so that they are able to exercise their rights, and build the capacities of public institutions including in the forensic field.
Ukraine subsequently adopted a number of measures in line with these recommendations, most importantly through the adoption of the Law on the Legal Status of Missing Persons on 2 August 2018, and subsequently through decrees concerning the establishment of a Central Register for Missing Persons.
In 2021, at the invitation of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for the Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine, ICMP again visited Kyiv to conclude an MoU on ICMP support in a range of practical measures including capacity building for the Commission on Missing Persons, improving DNA-based human identification processes, establishing a State Register of Missing Persons, as outlined in the 2018 law, and building consensus between civil society and the institutions of the State.
ICMP’s Ukraine Program is helping Ukrainian institutions to develop and access continuous, high-volume, DNA-led identification capabilities; it is helping the authorities to ensure that evidence collected during the missing persons process, including evidence from mass and clandestine graves, is admissible in criminal trials; it is supporting laboratory operations, data collection, and mass grave investigations; it is providing Ukrainian institutions (including the National Police of Ukraine) and the Ukrainian public with access to large-scale, secure missing persons data processing; and it is engaged in an outreach campaign to ensure the effective participation of civil society and families of the missing in the missing persons process.
