Episode Details

Armed conflicts affecting all regions of the world today continue to result in the separation of families and in people going missing and dying. Such heart wrenching loss also occurs in other situations of violence, in disasters and along migratory routes. In 2021, the ICRC registered more than 29,000 new cases of missing people, bringing the current number of cases we are following in 2022 to 173,800 – a 75% increase over the past five years. Many decades-old cases remain unresolved the world over. In this post, ICRC legal advisers Helen Obregón and Ximena Londoño shed light on some of the particularly rich – but not sufficiently known – rules of international humanitarian law, notably on the ICRC’s Central Tracing Agency and National Information Bureau, relevant to protecting people affected by international armed conflicts like the one taking place in Ukraine today. Taking action to implement these obligations on the ground today is essential to the prevention of greater suffering tomorrow.