Delivered by H.E. Tareq Albanai, Permanent Representative of Kuwait to the United Nations, on the occasion of the UN Security Council Open Debate on Protection of Civilians, 21st May 2024. 

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the Global Alliance for the Missing, a cross-regional group of States comprised of Argentina, Azerbaijan, Colombia, Croatia, Estonia, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Peru, Republic of Korea, Switzerland, The Gambia and my own State, Kuwait. Since this group was created in 2021 to focus attention on missing persons and to promote the implementation of relevant obligations and commitments, we would like to highlight, through this statement, the importance of the dignified treatment of the dead as one key area in early response that can help prevent persons going missing.

Madam President, as the PoC report of the SG notes, the ICRC has registered 40,000 new missing persons cases in 2023, its highest ever yearly number. This sharp increase in missing persons is being driven by multiple ongoing armed conflicts.

Tens of thousands of civilians and combatants have died over the past year in these conflicts. All too often, their remains are left under the rubble or on the battlefield or buried without having been documented or identified. Others disappear in detention or as the consequence of grave violations of international humanitarian law. As a result, countless families live in uncertainty over the fate of their loved ones, often resulting in longer term impacts on the wider community.

International Humanitarian Law as provided for in particular in the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 sets out clear obligations on parties to armed conflict with regard to the treatment of the dead and the search for missing persons. It also establishes the right of families to know the fate of their missing loved ones. Where the dead are recovered and managed in a timely and dignified manner their identity can often be established, and answers be provided to their families. This was explicitly recognised by the Security Council in its resolution 2474 on missing persons in armed conflict. National and international processes as well as expertise to do this have been developed over decades including by many of the member states of the Global Alliance for the Missing.

We call on the Security Council, on Member States, and on relevant international and regional organisations to include concerns around the missing and the dead in their interactions with parties to armed conflict and in their own responses. We also call on States to cooperate to effectively solve cases of missing persons, including by providing mutual assistance in terms of information-sharing, victim assistance, location and identification of missing persons and recovery, identification and return of human remains and, if possible, by identifying, mapping and preserving burial sites.

Specifically, we call for search, recovery, documentation, and identification of the dead to be integrated into planning and conduct of humanitarian and reconstruction operations from day one. To this effect, states and relevant stakeholders should cooperate to mobilize and deploy requisite expertise and capacities in a coordinated manner. Organisations such as the ICRC can help identify needs, ensure integration with the work of relevant authorities, and thus contribute to overall coherence and coordination of efforts.

Your Excellencies, experience in many contexts has shown that where the actions that I have just outlined are taken early-on they can help prevent people from going missing. Doing so helps reduce long-term missing case-loads that are complex and expensive to resolve, that leave families in painful uncertainty, and that can turn into obstacles to sustainable peace.

Members of the Global Alliance have considerable experience in this regard which they stand ready to share. We look forward to a more focused discussion on preventing and responding to missing persons in armed conflict, and the implementation of UNSC Resolution 2474, at the upcoming Arria Formula meeting of the UNSC on missing persons in armed conflict on 12 June 2024.

Thank you.