by Anthony Deutsch
KYIV (Reuters) – More than 15,000 people have been missing since the start of the war in Ukraine on February 24, an official with the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) said on Thursday.
The organization based in The Hague, Netherlands, opened an office in July in Kyiv to help Ukraine document and locate missing persons.
Matthew Holliday, program director for Europe, said it was not known exactly how many people were forcibly taken to Russia, whether they were still alive or not.
The investigative work will last for years, even after the fighting is over, Matthew Holliday told Reuters. The toll of 15,000 missing people is a conservative number considering that in the city of Mariupol alone, authorities estimate that 25,000 people are dead or missing.
“The numbers are huge and the challenges facing Ukraine are vast,” he said. “What is essential now is to put in place all the appropriate measures to ensure that as many people as possible can be identified.”
(Anthony Deutsch, French version Laetitia Volga, editing by Kate Entringer)
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