THE missing persons’ issue is not new. The post-Soviet political tumult in the world released the pent-up energy of ethnic and ideological conflicts that had lain dormant under the stabilising hold of totalitarianism.

Consequently, as armed conflicts amongst and within nations intensified, the number of missing persons remained high during the mid-1990s. An international commission for missing persons was established in 1996 to track and resolve the issue in Yugoslavia’s conflict. The commission’s mandate was expanded in 2003 to include the global issues of missing persons in various conflicts, natural disasters, and climate migrations.

The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance was signed in 2006, which defined enforced disappearance as “the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the state or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorisation, support or acquiescence of the state”. The treaty entered into force in 2010.

The missing persons issue got further traction with the rise of ideologically inspired waves of terrorism by organisations like Al Qaeda, IS and several others. UNSC........

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