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International Day of Missing Persons August 30
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International
Day of Missing Persons August 30, 2005
International
Day of Missing Persons
August 30
There
are hundred thousands of missing persons in the world, and unfortunately,
the number of missing persons does not reduce. It increases in the
result of new conflicts and intimidations. Especially the families
of disappeared people suffer. Their fate is not an easy one; they
just do not know what really happened with their relatives.
During
1990s in Georgia armed conflicts caused many victims: missing persons.
Nothing is known about most of them. Due to efforts of missing persons’
relatives, out of 1890 missing soldiers and civilians during the conflicts
of Abkhazia, 161 persons have been found and reburied. 97 of them
were soldiers and the rest were partisans and civilians. From the
Abkhazian side there are 129 missing persons including soldiers and
civilians, 10 persons were found. Unfortunately, after the end of
military actions the disappearance of people in Abkhazia did not stop
but it became regular.
In the Georgian – South Ossetian conflict there are 8 missing
persons from Georgia, and 168 persons from South Ossetia.
In the common grave of missing persons in Tbilisi, 54 found soldiers
are buried. 25 graves are the graves of not identified soldiers. In
the result of searching 16 bodies of missing persons were buried in
the family grave with the request of relatives.
With the efforts of the “Expectation” Foundation of missing
persons’ families, in the territory of the missing persons’
common grave, a museum (called “Expectation”) of victims
and missing persons of the armed conflicts for the integrity of Georgia
was built. The opening of the official ceremony of the first museum
of missing soldiers in the world will be held on September 27, 2004.
In
1982 in Latin America the representatives of the organization FEDERAM
gathered in the Committee of management in Karakas, Venezuela and
decided to celebrate a special day to commemorate their missing relatives.
So on August 30, 1982, the International Day of missing persons was
founded in Karakas. This day is symbolic and it is celebrated not
only in all the countries of Latin America but also in other republics
of the world.
In
Georgia where there are more than 1500 missing persons celebrated
the International Day of missing persons together with the neighboring
countries of the South Caucasus.
On August 30 – International Day of missing persons –
the representatives of the “Expectation” foundation of
missing persons of the armed conflicts and HCA Georgian National Committee
decided to bring the first exhibits to the museum “Expectation”
of missing persons. These are mainly the belongings of the missing
persons: written works, poems, compositions, paintings, an album with
photos, etc. which were made by them. Besides, HCA GNC supports the
fund “Expectation” to obtain necessary things for the
museum.
Near
the museum a prayer-place is being built, where people can light a
candle and pray for the missing persons when coming to the museum
or to the graves.
Public
unions should work out new methods and deepen the cooperation in the
sphere of solving the problems of missing persons, in order that the
hopeless families of missing persons of the conflict and peace period
could know what happened to their relatives.
New
methods are necessary for solving these problems, as well as work
out of new strategies for explaining what happened with the missing
persons, work out of suggestions preventing disappearance of people
in general. Today’s norms and mechanisms concerning finding
the missing persons are often not effective.
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