UN / MISSING PERSONS

Addressing an informal meeting of the General Assembly on missing persons, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said, “without the truth about a loved one’s whereabouts, and without justice, cycles of harm churn on, fracturing societies for generations.” UNIFEED

• Video Length: 00:02:28
• Production Date: 2 April 2025
• Asset Language: English
• Personal Subject: VOLKER TÜRK; PHILEMON YANG
• Corporate Name: GENERAL ASSEMBLY; OFFICE OF THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS - OHCHR
• Subject Topical: DISAPPEARANCE OF PERSONS; ABDUCTION; HUMAN RIGHTS
• MAMS Id: 3357192
• Parent Id: 3357192
• Alternate Title: unifeed250402b

Description

STORY: UN / MISSING PERSONS
TRT: 02:28
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 02 APRIL 2025, NEW YORK CITY / FILE

Shotlist

FILE - NEW YORK CITY

1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations Headquarters

02 APRIL 2025, NEW YORK CITY

2. Wide shot, Trusteeship Council Chamber
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Philémon Yang, President, General Assembly, United Nations:
“Together, we must ensure that no missing person remains a number. We have a moral responsibility to find and return every missing person. With determination and solidarity, we must transform grief into justice, and uncertainty into hope.”
4. Wide shot, Trusteeship Council Chamber
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Volker Türk, High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations:
“The pain of not knowing the fate of loved ones is one of the worst things that can ever happen to anyone. It never eases, no matter how much time has passed. Without the truth about a loved one’s whereabouts, and without justice, cycles of harm churn on, fracturing societies for generations. In 2024, the International Committee of the Red Cross registered 56,559 new cases of missing people. This is the highest increase in at least twenty years.”
6. Wide shot, Trusteeship Council Chamber
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Volker Türk, High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations:
“The scale is enormous. Figures range from tens of thousands of people missing in some countries, to well over 100,000 in others. Over the past 45 years the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances has dealt with over 62,000 cases of enforced disappearances in 115 States. Sadly, this is just the tip of a very large iceberg.”
8. Wide shot, Trusteeship Council Chamber
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Volker Türk, High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations:
“We must pursue justice and other forms of accountability. Urgent efforts are needed within and between countries to deliver justice for victims, to tackle impunity, and to make sure these violations don’t happen again. Impunity persists, and lack of access to justice and reparations for victims are a significant challenge worldwide. For families, accountability begins with knowing the truth about the fate of their loved ones, regardless of how they went missing. Truth, reparations to victims, and guarantees of non-recurrence are essential.”
10. Wide shot, Trusteeship Council Chamber

Storyline

Addressing an informal meeting of the General Assembly on missing persons, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, today (2 Apr) said, “without the truth about a loved one’s whereabouts, and without justice, cycles of harm churn on, fracturing societies for generations.”

Opening the meeting, the President of the General Assembly, Philémon Yang, said, “we must ensure that no missing person remains a number,” stressing that “we have a moral responsibility to find and return every missing person.”
Yang said, “with determination and solidarity, we must transform grief into justice, and uncertainty into hope.”

Türk said, “the pain of not knowing the fate of loved ones is one of the worst things that can ever happen to anyone. It never eases, no matter how much time has passed. “

He noted that in 2024, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) registered 56,559 new cases of missing people, “the highest increase in at least twenty years.”

The High Commissioner said, “the scale is enormous. Figures range from tens of thousands of people missing in some countries, to well over 100,000 in others. Over the past 45 years the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances has dealt with over 62,000 cases of enforced disappearances in 115 States.”

Sadly, he said, “this is just the tip of a very large iceberg.”

Türk called for “justice and other forms of accountability” and said, “urgent efforts are needed within and between countries to deliver justice for victims, to tackle impunity, and to make sure these violations don’t happen again.”

For families, he said, “accountability begins with knowing the truth about the fate of their loved ones, regardless of how they went missing” and added that “truth, reparations to victims, and guarantees of non-recurrence are essential.”

A resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 17 December 2024 expressed concern about the dramatic increase since 2014 in persons reported missing in connection with armed conflict, and recognized that it is critical for States to address the issue holistically, from prevention to the tracing, location, identification and return of missing persons,

The resolution urged States to take all necessary measures at the national, regional and international levels to address the problem of persons reported missing in connection with armed conflict.