ICRC disclosed 24,000 Nigerians declared missing, 16,000 registered in North East alone
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Some 24,000 Nigerians have been declared missing by their families since 2014, according to data compiled by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
ICRC Protection of Family Links Team Leader, María Toscano, disclosed this at a media workshop in Maiduguri and stressed the body is still on the trail of those missing.
She said:
- Borno has the highest number of missing persons with about 9,000 out of the total 16,000 registered by ICRC in the North East.
- 11 persons have so far been reunited with their families this year, in addition to the 13 reintegrated with their families in 2024.
- Of the 24,000 registered missing persons, 71 per cent occurred between 2014 and 2015, with Bama Council in Borno having the highest caseload of about 5,000.
- 65 per cent of those missing in the North East were children at the time they went missing.
Toscano listed ICRC intervention challenges to include lack of access to conflict-affected areas and difficulties in contacting families.
Diana Japaridze, ICRC Head of ICRC sub-delegation in Maiduguri, expressed concern over the increasing rate of missing persons and families yet to be reunited after suffering displacement due to armed conflict for over a decade.
“Some people spend years searching for loved ones, often with no result. Families have a right to know their fate,” she lamented.
“In the chaos of armed conflict, situations of violence and disasters, families can become separated in a matter of minutes, creating anguish and vulnerability and sometimes leading to long years of uncertainty about the fate of children, spouses or parents.
“While states should raise public awareness of the problem of missing persons as a fundamental concern of international humanitarian law and human rights law, the mass media must draw the public attention to this problem and the needs of families of missing persons.
“We hope the knowledge and discussions we are going to share and have during the training will help you, the media professionals, research on the topic more deeply, ask better questions, write quality content, and thus report it in a more professional, unbiased, and empathetic manner.”
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