{"id":34437,"date":"2017-08-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-26T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/34437-international-day-of-the-disappeared-ukraine-unbearable-uncertainty-for-families-of-the-missing.html"},"modified":"2017-08-27T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-08-26T22:00:00","slug":"international-day-of-the-disappeared-ukraine-unbearable-uncertainty-for-families-of-the-missing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/34437-international-day-of-the-disappeared-ukraine-unbearable-uncertainty-for-families-of-the-missing.html","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine: Unbearable uncertainty for families of the missing"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"content-excerpt\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/x9XHPU21uFU\" width=\"560\" height=\"314\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>For more than three years, eastern Ukraine has suffered conflict. Amid the world\u2019s many other humanitarian crises, in Syria, or in Yemen for example, it can be easy to forget Ukraine. But the UN estimates that 10,000 people have lost their lives here since 2014. Thousands of families are grieving, and many, like Yuliia and Olha, have been condemned to wait for years to find out exactly what happened to their loved ones.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cThese are our fathers,\u201d says Yuliia, taking a framed photograph off the shelf. \u201cThis one is Olha\u2019s father, Serhii Uzakov, and this one here is my father, Volodymyr Bondarenko.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The two men disappeared almost three years ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was November 27<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a02014,\u201d remembers Yuliia. \u201cA group of armed men broke into our fathers\u2019 farm. People who saw what happened told us they wore camouflage, and balaclavas. And they knew our fathers\u2019 names.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In another village, close to the contact line, Elena waits desperately for any news of her daughter Yana.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn September 17<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a02014 my daughter went missing,\u201d Elena explains. \u201cWe do not know the circumstances. We have had no news of her since that day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Elena and her parents are caught in an unbearable limbo of uncertainty, waiting to hear from their beloved daughter and granddaughter Yana. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, over one thousand five hundred people are still believed to be missing in Ukraine, although the exact number cannot be established with certainty. Until the missing are found, their families suffer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe main need of the families is to know what happened to their loved ones, based on the right to know that they have, also enshrined in International Humanitarian Law,\u201d explains Mariana Chacon Lozano, who is Coordinator for the Missing File with the ICRC in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen they also have emotional, psychosocial needs,\u201d she continues. \u201cBecause of the heavy burden that the uncertainty represents. Just not knowing often isolates them from their community: they are not very willing to talk about these issues, so that is also something that we need to take into consideration. And they also have financial needs; often it is the case that the person who goes missing is the breadwinner.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The ICRC is a neutral and impartial intermediary, and it is working with all parties to the conflict to try to trace missing persons, and bring some certainty to their relatives. Tragically for many families, the long waiting often ends with news of the worst kind.<\/p>\n<p>After almost three years of looking, Yuliia and Olha now know for sure that their fathers are dead, and they have at least been able to bury them. The end of uncertainty, and having a grave to visit, has brought them some relief.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI come here,\u201d says Olha. \u201cI imagine that I am talking to him. I ask him for guidance. It\u2019s as if we were talking on the phone: I call him and we just talk. And he answers, there is a sign of some kind; a bird sings, or the wind blows.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The ICRC continues its support for families of the missing even after the fate of a relative becomes known. As ICRC psychologist Victor Blinov explains, being able to talk about their feelings can help families to regain a purpose in life.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt helps them to start a normal life again, to continue, to move on in their own lives.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But, Victor adds, \u201cWe are not talking about the healing of this trauma, healing of this loss \u2013 it's impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Yana\u2019s mother and grandparents are still waiting. The family\u2019s grief and stress are compounded by the fact that it is not the first time they have had to mourn a missing loved one. Grandfather Aleksandr\u2019s father disappeared in Germany in the second world war.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe waited for our father,\u201d remembers Aleksandr. \u201cOur mother had three children. But our father never came back. It\u2019s as if he vanished into thin air; he has not returned to this day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Aleksandr knows his father will now never come back. But Svetlana clings desperately to the hope that she will see her granddaughter again.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPlease, if possible, help us find our child\u201d she says. \u201cEven the smallest piece of information about her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Far from the front line, life in Ukraine may look normal at first glance, but for the families of the missing, it is anything but. Even if the conflict were to end, they will know no peace until they learn what has happened to their loved ones.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<strong>Facts and Figures<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The ICRC has 640 open cases of people registered as missing in Ukraine. Work is ongoing trying to trace the missing, and to raise awareness with the authorities and the general public to ensure that information about the missing, and about unidentified remains, are shared.<\/p>\n<p>The ICRC is providing psychosocial support to families of the missing in the Severodonetsk region of Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>Typical symptoms suffered by relatives of the missing are insomnia, nightmares, anxiety, and depression.<\/p>\n<p>The ICRC has set up a cash assistance programme for 80 families of the missing in Ukraine: many suffer financial problems, because the missing relative was the chief income producer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For more than three years, eastern Ukraine has suffered conflict. Amid the world\u2019s many other humanitarian crises, in Syria, or in Yemen for example, it can be easy to forget Ukraine. But the UN estimates that 10,000 people have lost their lives here since 2014. Thousands of families are grieving, and many, like Yuliia and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[],"ji_location":[2533],"class_list":["post-34437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other","ji_location-ukraine"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.3.1 (Yoast SEO v25.3.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ukraine: Unbearable uncertainty for families of the missing - JusticeInfo.net<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/34437-international-day-of-the-disappeared-ukraine-unbearable-uncertainty-for-families-of-the-missing.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ukraine: Unbearable uncertainty for families of the missing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For more than three years, eastern Ukraine has suffered conflict. 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