CMP completes its work for the year 2006
Release Date: Dec 21, 2006
PRESS RELEASE
(Nicosia, 21 December 2006) – Today the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus (CMP) completed its 93rd session and held its last meeting of the year.
During 2006, the CMP formalised and launched its Project on the Exhumation, Identification and Return of Remains of Missing Persons in Cyprus. The project is carried out by bi-communal teams composed of both Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot scientists. These teams, under the guidance of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), are exhuming remains all over the island, and are carrying out anthropological analysis on the remains stored at the Anthropological Laboratory built by the CMP in the United Nations Protected Area (UNPA) in Nicosia. A bi-communal team of scientists will also carry out DNA identifications.
To date, one hundred and sixty sets of remains are at the Anthropological Laboratory where they are analysed and prepared for DNA tests.
The CMP hopes to be able to return the first sets of remains to the concerned families by April 2007. It is in close contact with the respective family associations of missing persons.
The budget for the project in 2007 amounts to some €2.1 million. Substantial contributions have been secured by the CMP, which continues its fundraising efforts. The project is expected to last several years.
In 2007, the CMP will resume its investigative activities to discover the fate of missing persons, in addition to what the exhumation and identification process can yield.
Next year, the CMP endeavours to do its utmost to bring answers and thereby closure, to as many families of missing persons as possible.