Georgian, Abkhaz participants meet in İstanbul talks on persons missing from Abkhazia war
The body added 526 human remains had been found and recovered, with 273 identified and handed over to their families for burial, as a result of the work of the coordination mechanism, and noted the outcome was made possible by joint efforts and “active involvement” of the participants. Photo: Georgian State Ministry for Reconciliation and Civic Equality
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The Georgian State Ministry for Reconciliation and Civic Equality on Friday said a meeting involving Georgian and Abkhaz participants for finding and determining the fate of missing individuals from the 1992-1993 armed conflict in Georgia’s Russian-occupied Abkhazia region was hosted in İstanbul.
Chaired by the neutral moderator of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the 15th meeting of the coordination mechanism emphasised the need to find further information about the graves of missing people and challenges related to the identification process.
The Ministry said the participants exchanged information to facilitate further search and identification process and agreed on “practical steps” to increase efforts to collect and exchange information, and accelerate search for missing persons.
The body added 526 human remains had been found and recovered, with 273 identified and handed over to their families for burial, as a result of the work of the coordination mechanism, and noted the outcome was made possible by joint efforts and “active involvement” of the participants.
It also said 1,870 people were considered missing from the conflict, with their families “anxiously waiting for concrete answers and an end to years of uncertainty”.
Under the ICRC's auspices, the coordination mechanism was formed in 2010 to handle issues related to determining the fate of the missing individuals. The Ministry noted a “fully humanitarian dialogue” between the participants and their “continued” involvement in the mechanism was “crucial” in the effort.
The conflict in the northwestern region began on August 14, 1992 and took the lives of between 13,000 to 20,000 ethnic Georgians and approximately 3,000 Abkhaz before it ended on September 27, 1993.
Over 250,000 Georgians fled the region and became internally displaced in the country, while more than 2,000 - including about 1,500 ethnic Georgians, up to 200 ethnic Abkhaz and about 100 ethnic Ossetians - were declared missing in the aftermath of the war.