Missing person

This week in Poznan, in western Poland, the countries of the Berlin Process, an initiative designed to foster stronger ties between the Western Balkans and the European Union, are meeting to review progress since their last meeting a year ago in London.

A child is declared missing almost every day in Greece, the head of the Greek Police's (ELAS) missing persons unit, Nikolaos Zervakakos, said on Monday, adding that family members must file a missing persons report as soon as their child disappears.

Child protection agency Hamogelo tou Paidiou (Child's Smile) has issued a missing alert notice following the disappearance of a 16-year-old girl from Syria.

The girl, Avin Ibrahim, has been missing from Koutsohero in Larisa, central Greece, since November 6.

A total of 104,531 children were reported officially missing between 2008-2016, according to the judicial statistics released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK), daily Birgün reported on July 3. 

Greece marked International Missing Children's Day on Friday with a conference during which officials and experts presented encouraging statistics.

The overwhelming majority of minors who go missing in Greece are traced, according to the Greek police and NGO Smile of the Child, which organized the event.

Photo: Tanjug, Z. Zestic

President of the Serbian Commission for Missing Persons Veljko Odalovic says there are still 10,600 persons listed as missing in the region.

"Time is not an ally in solving the issue," he remarked.

A total of 911 individuals whose names are included in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s national register of wartime missing persons are actually alive, and remain on the list by mistake.

The Serbian parliament adopted on Thursday the amendments to the Law on Police which envisage that the search for missing persons is to begin immediately.

Previously, the police acted 48-hours after receiving a report on that a person had gone missing.

Turkish police search for nearly 4,000 missing children every month in Turkey, while 2,600 people have been found in the past four months.     

The digital display in central Pristina, an initiative launched by Kosovo’s government commission on missing persons, is an inadequate substitute for the genuine memorial that was originally promised, relatives who have joined the boycott told BIRN.