Over 100,000 people around the world are missing, which has created a global “crisis,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said Monday.
Agnes Coutou, the organization’s protection adviser, told the U.N. General Assembly’s human rights committee that “this is the highest number we have ever had.”
“We know that this is the tip of the iceberg and that it represents only a fraction of those estimated to be missing because of past and ongoing conflicts,” she said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross works with the families of missing persons and authorities in over 40 countries affected by past and current conflicts. It also chairs five bodies trying to resolve cases of missing persons.
Coutou said three factors driving the crisis are the scale of armed conflicts responsible for a substantial number of missing; the “intergenerational impact” of people missing for decades on their families; and the increased internationalization of the problem.
Source: Time
