End plight of missing migrants, unsafe policies, says Council of Europe rights commissioner

By Shweta Desai

PARIS (AA) – Europe’s top human rights body on Thursday strongly urged member states to end plight of missing migrants with safe and legal routes and discontinue policies increasing the risk of migrants’ disappearance.

Dunja Mijatovic, the Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner, said the tragedy of missing migrants has reached a dreadful level and continues to be “utterly neglected.”

“The magnitude of the issue demands immediate action. The time has come to put an end to migrants going missing on land and at sea, along migration routes and within member states,” she said in the statement.

According to the International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project, about 25,000 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean in attempts to reach Europe since 2014.

Even after their arrival in Europe, thousands of young migrants, unaccompanied children and women go missing after registering with the authorities, the statement said, adding that many countries have no reliable data or information about their disappearance.

Mijatovic said member states are obliged to ascertain the whereabouts of missing migrants and take appropriate steps to safeguard the lives of those within their jurisdiction in a non-discriminatory manner.

She urged them to take action by establishing effective search and rescue mechanisms, ensuring timely and adequate humanitarian assistance along migration routes, creating centralized regional databases on migrant disappearances, and, cooperating with nongovernmental organizations to ascertain the fate of the missing migrants, among other measures.

She said to prevent migrants from going missing, “deaths and disappearances must first and foremost be prevented.” All migration and border management policies that – wittingly or unwittingly – compound the risk of migrants’ disappearances should be discontinued,” she added.