AANES forms missing persons committee in northern Syria
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) announced on Tuesday the formation of the “Committee for Missing Persons in North and East Syria” in response to a call from the United Nations General Assembly, which adopted a resolution on the matter last June.
The Foreign Relations Department of the AANES said in a statement that the “date of the committee’s start of work and how to communicate with it” will be announced later.
On late June, the UN General Assembly announced the adoption of a resolution to establish an institution to determine the fate of the missing and forcibly disappeared in Syria.
The General Assembly called on all parties to the conflict in Syria to fully cooperate with the international institution established according to their obligations under international law. It also called on the relevant parties in Syria to cooperate.
“This institution consists of a central committee based in Qamishli [a city in northeast Syria] and sub-committees in various areas of the AANES,” according to the statement.
The statement indicated that “this committee will coordinate and cooperate with the relevant parties in searching for the missing persons from the AANES-held areas since the beginning of the Syrian crisis.”
The statement emphasized that search operations “will be conducted without discrimination based on sex, nationality, religion, or sect.”
According to various estimates by the UN, the number of missing persons in Syria since 2011 is estimated to be around 100,000 people, but there are missing persons before this date, and it is believed that the actual numbers are higher than that.