The right of the families of missing persons to dignity and justice, which is explicitly dictated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, was highlighted by the MEP of the New Democracy and the EPP, Fredi Belleris, during his intervention at the European Parliament’s plenary session on “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: The need for the European Union to contribute to solving the humanitarian crisis of missing persons in wars and conflicts”.

The a need to address the issue of the human rights situation in conflict and conflict resolution in Europe.

Beleris referred “to Cyprus, where 50 years after the Turkish invasion, thousands of families are searching for their relatives, and Albania, where some 6,000 people are still missing,” adding that “the same phenomenon has been observed in other countries.”

The ND and EPP MEP stressed that “we have the moral and political responsibility to help to remedy this injustice. The European Parliament took the first step in 2015, adopting a resolution on mass graves of missing persons in the village of Ornithi in the occupied part of Cyprus.”

In the first instance, the European Commission adopted a resolution on the issue of the burial of the victims of the Holocaust in Cyprus, in a resolution adopted by the European Commission in the European Parliament in June 2009.

“Because behind every missing person there is a family, a story, and endless pain. Behind every truth that does not come to light, there are our responsibilities,” he concluded.