Sun 30 August 2020:
Libya has faced a tidal wave of internal conflict that has claimed thousands of lives since Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s overthrow in 2011.
Between civil wars, the Abu Salim prison massacre, Gaddafi’s regional conflicts and a tendency to “disappear” political dissidents during his reign, many thousands of Libyans have lost loved ones to political conflict and instability.
This is the reality of war and dictatorship. But the widespread disappearance of human beings is often overlooked as a consequence.
Sunday marks the International Day of the Disappeared. Each year August 30 draws attention to those who have gone missing and the resulting suffering of their families and friends.
The cost of war
Across the African continent, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has recorded 44,000 people as missing. Shockingly, almost half of these people were children at the time of their disappearance.
But the ICRC only records a missing person when a family member opens a case with the organisation.
“This caseload is a drop in the ocean,” said Sophie Marsac, ICRC’s regional adviser for the missing and their families in Africa.
In Libya, for instance, the ICRC has registered more than 1,600 people as missing. But according to the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), which aims to keep a record of every disappearance, some 10,000 people are currently missing in Libya alone.
It is not an unusual number after such a long period of conflict and instability. The conflicts and atrocities that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia, for example, are estimated to have seen 40,000 people go missing. While in Syria and Iraq, the ICMP’s estimates start at 100,000 and 250,000 people, respectively.
Largely, these numbers comprise those who went missing during years of dictatorship and conflict. But, in Libya, a significant portion can also be attributed to slavery, human trafficking and Libya’s position on the migration route to Europe.
The moral importance of these findings cannot be overstated. Every missing person leaves behind a family, often with little support, facing psychological, legal and economic challenges for years after their loved ones disappear.
“I hardly sleep,” said Kaltum, from Nigeria, whose daughter went missing nine years ago. “I feel it in my heart that my daughter is alive. I still have hope.”
In Libya this week, renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar and his self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) rejected the ceasefire announcement made by the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA). These two factions represent the main forces in Libya’s ongoing civil war, and Haftar’s dismissal casts doubt over what was at least a fragile peace.
Combined with the COVID-19 pandemic, charities and international organisations are facing more and more obstacles in their search for the missing.
But these organisations are incredibly resilient. In Iraq, for example, the ICMP has helped establish legislative, government and civil society initiatives that are working together to locate missing persons, prosecute those guilty for their disappearance and support the families of the missing.
All this has been achieved despite continuing unrest across the country, demonstrating the remarkable progress that can be made given the necessary effort and political will.
As Marsac explained: “International Day of the Disappeared should remind us that an untold number of families are searching for a loved one, many of them parents looking for a child. The tragedy of missing people is a humanitarian crisis and one that cannot be forgotten as the world focuses on fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.”
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA NEWS
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