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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

International Committee of the Red Cross list adopted as official list of missing persons

Belgrade, 16 March 2005

At a meeting of the Working Group on Missing Persons held today in Belgrade, International Committee of the Red Cross head of operations for Southeast Europe Francois Stam announced that representatives of the Albanian and Serb side agreed to accept the ICRC list as the official list of missing persons to be used in their future work. There are about 3,000 persons on the list who went missing in Kosovo-Metohija from January 1998 to December 2000.

Stam told the Tanjug news agency that today’s meeting, held after a year of delays, was an important step in the process of giving long awaited answers to thousands of families.

He said that the ICRC formed this list after talking with family members, who gave detailed information about the missing persons, but added this was not a final list, rather that data would be verified along the way and compared to lists provided by associations of families of missing persons.

The ICRC list has 2,960 missing persons, mainly Albanians at about 2,500, while the rest are Serbs, Roma and other non-Albanians, specified Stam. She went on to say that responsibility for giving answers lies equally with both sides, regardless of the fact that the majority of the missing are Albanians.

The next meeting of the Working Group for Missing Persons was scheduled for June 9, in Pristina. The state delegation, lead by President of Kosovo-Metohija Committee of the Serbia-Montenegro Parliament Veljko Odalovic, included Gradimir Nalic, Colonel Gvozden Gagic and pathologist Dr. Slavisa Dobricanin. The meeting was also attended by UNMIK representative Thomas Monaghan, as well as representatives of families of missing persons from Pristina and Belgrade.