Brussels-New York: Europe and the Arabs

The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution establishing a new international institution to clarify the fate and whereabouts of the missing in Syria and to provide support to the victims and their families. According to the UN news bulletin, of which we received a copy at dawn Friday, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, welcomed the decision of the General Assembly. "The initiative is much needed, as families have the right to know the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones, with the aim of helping the entire community recover," he said in a tweet posted on the UNHCR's Twitter page.
The draft resolution was co-authored by Luxembourg, Albania, Belgium, Cape Verde, the Dominican Republic and Macedonia.
At the moment he presented the draft resolution to the General Assembly, Luxembourg's permanent representative to the United Nations, Olivier Mace, said that the new institution will work to coordinate and communicate with all parties, and will be a unified point for collecting and comparing data related to the fate and whereabouts of missing persons.
Maes explained that the new institution will work to bridge the current shortcomings, as there is insufficient coordination between the concerned parties, which results in incomplete lists of missing persons, and there is no unified body for the families of the missing to turn to to find out the fate of their relatives.
The delegate of Luxembourg added that the new institution would coordinate with all stakeholders, complement efforts to determine the fate of missing persons and avoid duplication of information.
Under the new decision, the new institution will work to ensure that families of victims, missing persons, and survivors and their families are represented in Syria during its establishment process and during its work. It will also consult on an ongoing basis with women's organizations and civil society organizations.
"This decision does not point fingers at anyone," the delegate of Luxembourg stressed.
A long overdue historic decision
In turn, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria described the decision to establish the institution as "historic."
This step has been long overdue by the international community, and it has finally come to help the families of all those who have been forcibly disappeared, abducted, tortured and held in arbitrary and incommunicado detention over the past 12 years,” Commission Chair Paulo Pinheiro said in a statement.
He added that families "were left alone in searching for their loved ones for a very long time," noting that this "institution is a humanitarian necessity and complements efforts towards accountability."
In turn, Commissioner Lynn Welchman said: "The Syrian government and the parties to the conflict have deliberately prolonged the suffering of families by withholding information about the fate of tens of thousands of missing or disappeared."
"Families searching for their detained relatives are constantly at risk of arrest, extortion and ill-treatment," Welchman added. She went on to say:
"The majority of the disappeared are men, and the searches are led by women who face discrimination and abuse based on their gender. These brave women need every support they can get from this new institution."
For his part, Commissioner Hani Megally said that the families of the missing expect "the best expertise, methodologies, technology and sufficient resources to be mobilized for this institution."
In addition to assisting with the research, the new body is tasked with providing assistance, including much-needed psychosocial assistance to families and survivors, according to Commissioner Hani Megally.
The representative of Syria refuses to establish the institution
Speaking before the vote on the resolution, Syria's permanent representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Bassam Sabbagh, described the panel as "politicized".
He added that his country "is keen to deal with this humanitarian issue, but it rejects the approach of politicization that has been taken regarding it, and stresses that humanitarian issues cannot be fragmented, and cannot be dealt with selectively." As he says.
He said that his country "was not a party to any of these discussions that took place, nor was it invited to it, nor was it consulted regarding the establishment of this institution."
It is noteworthy that there are more than 100,000 people whose fate is unknown in Syria.
In his report issued in August 2022, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, recommended that member states of the General Assembly consider establishing the institution last year as a cornerstone in the framework of resolving the issue of detained, kidnapped and missing persons.