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Ukraine: More than 15,000 missing since the start of the war

Ukraine: More than 15,000 missing since the start of the war

An official of the International Committee on Missing Persons (ICMP) reported that more than 15,000 people are ignored in Ukrainesince war broke out on February 24.

The program director for Europe, Matthew Hollidaysaid it was unclear how many of the people who were forcibly taken elsewhere are being held in Russia and are alive, or whether they died and were buried in makeshift graves.

THE process of locating the missing will take years, even after the fighting ends, Holliday said in an interview with Reuters. The number of 15,000 is a “conservative estimate” given the fact that only in Mariupolifor example, the authorities believe that at least 25,000 people were killed or missing.

The numbers are huge and the challenges facing Ukraine great“, he added. Holliday made the remarks after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on the United Nations to punish Russia for strikes on energy infrastructure that plunged many Ukrainian cities into darkness and cold.

In Kyiv, he has begun collecting DNA samples and believes this process will also help prosecutors in their war crimes investigations. “The key now is to put in place all the right measures to ensure that as many people as possible are identified. “Most of the missing, the dead, are victims of war crimes and the perpetrators must be held accountable,” Holliday said.

Source: News Beast