International Day of the Disappeared: Azerbaijan reveals data on war victims

In a resolution adopted in 2010, the UN General Assembly expressed serious concern over the growing number of cases of enforced disappearances worldwide. The category includes cases involving the arrest, detention and abduction of individuals.

As AZERTAC recalls, the UN General Assembly designated August 30 as the International Day of the Disappeared through Resolution A/RES/65/209.

Enforced disappearances have become part of a strategy aimed at creating an atmosphere of fear and, according to UN experts, have taken on a global scale. Hundreds of thousands of such cases remain unresolved, while new cases continue to emerge every year.

Enforced disappearance is one of the most serious violations of human rights. It causes severe suffering not only to the victims themselves but also to their relatives, who may spend years without receiving any information about the fate of their loved ones. In many cases, families remain caught between hope and despair, with no answers about what happened to their relatives.

One of the key international instruments in the fight against the problem is the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, adopted in 2006.

Azerbaijan has 4,010 registered missing persons

Azerbaijan has faced the problem of missing persons as a result of the armed conflict since the beginning of Armenia’s military aggression in 1988. According to data from the State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons, as of June 30, a total of 4,010 people had been registered as missing as a result of Armenia’s aggression.

Of these, 4,004 went missing during the First Karabakh War, while six went missing during the 44-day war in 2020. The registered missing persons include 3,228 military personnel and 782 civilians. Among the civilians are 71 minors, 288 women and 319 elderly people.

Since 2014, biological samples have been collected from close relatives of missing persons in accordance with a framework agreement signed in 2008 between the State Commission and the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Azerbaijan.

Since 2023, this work has been carried out, on the instructions of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, by the Genetic Research Center established under the Main Directorate of the Military Medical Service of the State Security Service. As of June 30, biological samples had been collected and catalogued from 11,542 donors.

Following the liberation of the occupied territories, state authorities were tasked with determining the fate of missing persons, including locating their burial sites and conducting the necessary excavations and exhumations.

Since February 2021, large-scale search operations have been conducted in the liberated territories, including the identification of burial sites, excavations, exhumations and the identification of remains.

As of June 30, remains believed to belong to 893 missing persons had been discovered. Over the entire period of search and excavation operations, 32 mass graves have been identified. The remains believed to belong to 253 people were found in these graves and exhumed with the participation of investigative authorities.

By Jeyhun Aghazada