In Ukraine, missing persons will be searched with the help of special groups

In Ukraine, missing persons will be searched with the help of special groups

At a government meeting, draft amendments to Article 11 of the law “On the legal status of persons missing under special circumstances” were approved.

The representative of the Cabinet of Ministers in the Verkhovna Rada, Taras Melnychuk, announced this in his Telegram.

According to him, the document proposes to define for the duration of martial law and for one year after its lifting the powers of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to create search groups. Their creation will take place in agreement with the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

In addition, it is assumed that the Coordination Headquarters will have the right to negotiate with representatives of humanitarian missions, public associations, and individuals involved in activities in temporarily occupied territories to search for missing persons under special circumstances.

Since May last year, a Unified Register of Missing Persons has been operating in Ukraine. At that time, it was officially possible to confirm about 23 thousand people who were considered missing under special circumstances - due to hostilities.

The register usually contains all the information about military personnel who are wanted. Moreover, the Ukrainian Armed Forces independently begin to search and transfer information to the registry if there is reason to believe that a military man is missing or captured.

In September 2023, the Cabinet of Ministers adopted a resolution transferring the functions of the Commissioner for Missing Persons to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Defence and the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Since then, the Ministry of Internal Affairs has been coordinating the search for persons and the functioning of the registry, the Ministry of Defence has been searching for the bodies of the dead, and the Coordination Headquarters has been exchanging the bodies of the dead.