PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE OF BIH CONTINUES ITS INTENSIVE ACTIVITIES ON FINDING AND IDENTIFYING MISSING PERSONS.

Aerial reconnaissance of the areas with potential mass grave locations was organized during the past few days.

On the occasion of the International Day of the Disappeared the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH wants to inform the public and the citizens of our country that it will continue  with intensive activities on coordinating and expediting the process of tracing and identifying the missing persons in cooperation with BiH and international institutions.

The staff of the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH has, in the previous period, spent several hundred working days out in the field in all parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in all weather conditions and often in remote locations, aiming to coordinate the work on the exhumation of war crimes victims.

The engagement of the BiH Armed Forces machinery was arranged for assistance with the excavation of mass graves. The BiH authorities were asked to allocate more funds for this purpose; there was a series of coordination meetings with all institutions involved in the process of searching for the missing in order to remove all technical difficulties as soon as possible and to ensure that the process does not get stopped or unnecessarily prolonged.

The Prosecutor’s Office of BiH has also undertaken a series of activities and agreements with institutions of the state that can help in this process, and has undertaken activities to produce satellite images in its search for traces of mass graves on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Following the approval of the BiH government, aerial reconnaissance of potential mass grave locations was conducted in order to find the remains of war crimes victims in collaboration with the International Commission on Missing Persons -ICMP, the National Council for Environmental Research and the University of Bournemouth from the UK.

The Prosecutor’s Office of BiH continues with the activities on the search for the remains of more than 8,000 people listed as missing during the war in BiH.

This process is extremely important for the families of victims who have been searching for the remains of their loved ones for 20 years or more.

Tracing the missing is also important for the prosecution of war crimes, as the remains that are found and identified are important evidence in war crimes cases.

The Prosecutor’s Office  of BiH invites all persons, organizations, political entities and institutions in BiH to refrain from unnecessary politicization of the process of search for the missing, because the process is primarily a question of the truth, justice and reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina in which all victims are equal and the rule of law is important in the process of peace building and European Integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina.