A regional association of families of people who went missing during the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s on Tuesday said that countries in the region are obliged to shed light on the destinies of missing persons and that there are still 11,000 unresolved cases.

The association which comprises various civil society organisations from Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina issued a statement on the occasion of the International Day of the Disappeared, observed on August 30 of each year.

“State institutions in the former Yugoslavia are obliged to reestablish the identity of persons who went missing in the war conflicts in the 1990s,” said a press release issued after a meeting held in Zagreb.

The associations discussed the implementation of the Framework Plan to Resolve the Issue of Missing Persons in Conflicts in the former Yugoslavia that was signed by countries in the region in November last year.

Chairwoman of the association’s steering committee, Semina Alekic, underscored that some progress had been noticed in cooperation between state institutions regarding the issue of missing persons.

“There has been some information exchanged of potential grave sites and preparations are being made for a regional list of missing persons that will prevent any manipulation of numbers,” she added.

Croatia’s representatives to the association, Ljiljana Alvir underlined that a lot of effort and funding had been invested in the past year in an attempt to find the missing however there were few results.