The international Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) will be one of the international agencies that will be providing technical support to the Bougainville Consultative Committee for Missing Persons (BCCM).
ICRC representative on Bougainville Fadi Fara told Loop PNG in a recent meeting regarding missing persons.
“It is one of our sole duties and roles to support victims of armed conflict and more importantly, right now to help find missing persons,” Fara said.
“Right now we do not have any factual data for missing persons and how many were killed in the Bougainville crisis, but we’re inclined and prepared to play an advisory role to the authorities and actors regarding missing persons.
“We will channel the way for Bougainville as a whole, especially in dealing with missing persons.
“One way is to expose on the media the activities we’re all doing,” Fara said.
He added that there is still no clear and legal definition of missing persons, especially people who are missing and their fate is unclear.
“All I can say is that the traditional method works in Bougainville, especially the process to retrieve bones from mass graves and also other sites.”
(Relatives of missing persons holding flowers, waiting to take part in a silent march in Arawa. © Rocky Roe Photographics)