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The Hague, 17 October 2025: A delegation from the Syrian National Commission for Missing Persons (NCMP) has completed working visits, to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH) and the Netherlands.
Between 5 and 9 October the NCMP delegation visited Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of an ICMP program funded by the European Union to learn about the country’s experience in establishing successful and sustainable mechanisms to account for the missing. The visitors met with representatives of national institutions, including the Bosnia and Herzegovina Missing Persons Institute (MPI), the War Crimes Prosecutor, civil society actors and families of the missing, and participated in technical briefings and site visits that highlighted data integration, family-centered engagement and inter-institutional coordination. They also visited the Potocari Memorial Center and Museum dedicated to the victims of the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide, where they had the opportunity to meet with the Mothers of Srebrenica.
From 9 to 14 October the delegation took part in an intensive program at ICMP Headquarters in The Hague, supported by the German Federal Foreign Office. This included briefings on the work carried out at ICMP’s DNA laboratories, presentations on the organization’s experience in Iraq and other countries, and sessions on building a central record of missing persons, covering data collection, secure repositories and data-sharing protocols.
Reflecting on his discussions with interlocutors in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in The Hague, Dr. Mohammad Reda Jalkhi, Head of the NCMP stated: we were able to engage directly with those working across the full spectrum of the missing persons process — families of the missing, government representatives, forensic institutions, data experts, and international partners. These interactions offered valuable insights into how inclusive, coordinated, and scientifically grounded mechanisms can transform an immensely complex challenge into a sustainable system of truth, identification, and accountability. Building on these experiences, the Syrian National Commission for Missing Persons aspires to establish a comprehensive, nationally led and internationally supported system — one that responds to the specific realities of the Syrian context, restores dignity to victims, and reinforces national reconciliation and justice.”
“ICMP is committed to helping the NCMP, the families of the missing and Syrian civil society in supporting their efforts to establish a sustainable Syrian-led process to account for all missing persons and to secure the rights of all families of the missing to justice and accountability,” said ICMP Director-General Kathryne Bomberger.
On 13 October, Dr. Mohammad Reda Jalkhi took part in a panel discussion in the Hague co-sponsored by the Embassy of the United Kingdom in the Netherlands and ICMP. As well as speakers from the NCMP and ICMP, panelists included representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the Independent Institution on Missing Persons in the Syrian Arab Republic (IIMP). The event brought together diplomatic missions and civil society to discuss next steps in building an effective missing persons process in Syria.
Estimates of the number of people missing from Syria run as high as 300,000. This includes persons missing as a consequence of summary execution, arbitrary and incommunicado detention, kidnapping and abduction, enslavement, sarin gas attacks, forced displacement and migration, as well as other human rights abuses. The day-to-day ravages of war have also resulted in combatants and civilians of many nationalities going missing. Syrians have sought refuge in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, or have joined the dangerous migration across the Mediterranean.
The visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina was made possible through the generous support of the European Union. The intensive program held at ICMP’s Headquarters was supported by the German Federal Foreign Office (FFO), while attendance at the UK-sponsored panel discussion was also made possible through the generous support of the FFO.
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.
