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Of: TT
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1 of 3 | Photo: Khalid Mohammed
Refugee camp in Iraq where around 1.5 million people were in 2014. File photo.
Tens of thousands of people have fled to Sweden in recent years due to wars and conflicts. Not everyone makes it out of disaster areas, but many disappear without a trace.
– We are currently looking for 5,000 relatives, 3,000 of whom are children, says Martin Ärnlöv, Secretary General of the Swedish Red Cross.
On Sunday, the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement around the world pays attention to and honors people missing in or after fleeing war and conflict.
In total figures, there are more than 145,000 cases worldwide, of which 5,000 are related to people in Sweden. The majority, 60 percent, of the cases the organization works with refer to missing children.
– We want to go out and update Sweden on how many are really missing. We are currently looking for 5,000 relatives, 3,000 of whom are children, and I think it is easy for everyone to get into the feeling of not knowing where a relative is, says Martin Ärnlöv, general secretary of the Swedish Red Cross.
A lot of blackouts
It says that 1,300 people are behind the Swedish cases who have contacted the organization for help finding relatives who have disappeared. In all cases, it has been possible to identify the disappeared, but the number of unreported cases is believed to be high.
– Yes, there can be much more than that. In these cases, these are people we know who they are and who have disappeared in connection with the war and conflict.
The question should be simplified
By drawing attention to the issue on an international day, you want to reach those affected and missing relatives so that they can establish contact, and you want to draw the attention of authorities and politicians to the issue.
– We want to further develop the good cooperation that exists with the Swedish authorities, but we also believe that Sweden needs to influence and improve cooperation between the European authorities to simplify the issue, he says.
He also wants to broaden the perspective on missing persons and make connections with both immigration policy and the conditions for integration.
– Of course, it is more difficult to focus on learning a new language if you also have this personal loss to identify with, where we must see how our systems work together. At the Swedish Red Cross we meet with those who come from war and torture and we see the regulations in Sweden and here decision makers and authorities need to gain a greater understanding.
DNA testing and facial recognition
The Red Cross works with a network of volunteers that spans 193 countries. The actual job of tracking down missing persons looks different in different parts of the world.
Digitization within the network and within the different authorities simplifies the work. Among other things, many people today have a mobile phone and it can be found on social media.
– Myself, in my trips to refugee camps, I have been involved where we have organized mobile phone stations and helped people to get in touch. These are incredibly moving scenes, says Martin Ärnlöv, recounting an incident where a woman in her 30s was at a camp with her children and was able to call her mother, with whom she had not spoken in four years.
The organization also works with facial recognition, where images on a person’s mobile phone can be used to try to track family members based on the possibilities in different countries.
The possibility of DNA testing also exists and is used, and according to Martin Ärnlöv, several cases have been able to be closed and closed as a result.
Most cases are not resolved
TT: Do you think it will be possible to find these disappeared?
– No, many of these missing persons will never be found and their families will continue to be forced to live in uncertainty. It affects mental health and the ability to settle in a new country. But that doesn’t diminish the importance of trying to find your family members and the feeling that you’ve done everything you can to get an answer.
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