Separated missing migrants: member states approaches to prevent family separation and search mechanisms for missing migrants

The issue of separated, missing and dead migrants is one of the main focus of the ICRC's humanitarian diplomacy efforts at EU level. Our action in this area aims at encouraging the EU to play a coordination/catalyst role in this field. The European Migration Network publication on this topic to which the ICRC participated seeks to achieve this objective. This document contains a mapping of EU Member States' existing policies, practices and procedures to prevent migrants' family separation once they arrive in the EU and search mechanisms available in each of these countries. The report particuarly underlines the absence of appropriate search mechanisms to report a migrant who has gone missing and pro-actively search for this person.