History
ICMP was established at the behest of United States President Bill Clinton in 1996 at the G7 summit in Lyon, France, to confront the issue of persons missing as a result of the different conflicts relevant to Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Croatia, and the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1991 to 1995. ICMP was first chaired by former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who was succeeded as Chairman by U.S. Senator Bob Dole. ICMP’s current Chairman is Thomas Miller.
Although based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), ICMP is currently engaged in a wide-ranging area of operations that include the former conflict zones in the Western Balkans and the Middle East, as well as areas affected by natural disasters, such as tsunami affected regions of South Asia and the U.S. Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina. In 2001, at the request of New York City Authorities, ICMP also sent two of its leading forensic scientists to the U.S. following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.
ICMP currently has three forensic facilities, two of which focus on human remains related to the fall of Srebrenica. These are the Podrinje Identification Project (PIP), and the Lukavac Reassociation Centre (LKRC). The Krajina Identification Project (KIP) is the primary facility for remains related to the area of Sanski Most and Prijedor. ICMP has offices in Sarajevo (BiH), Tuzla (BiH), Banja Luka (BiH), Baghdad and Arbil (Iraq) and Pristina (Kosovo).
By the end of August 2011, ICMP’s efforts had resulted in DNA-assisted identifications of 16,289 individuals from the former Yugoslavia.
In June 2008, the Philippines was struck by Typhoon Frank which caused over 1,000 deaths. In an effort to assist the Philippines in identifying persons who perished as a consequence of this tragedy, Interpol invited ICMP to work together with them to provide assistance, thus invoking for the first time an agreement that was signed between ICMP and Interpol in November 2007 to jointly respond to disaster situations.
Read more about this topic: International Commission On Missing Persons
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