August 30 marks the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances and it has been celebrated since 2011. The enforced disappearance is often deliberately used as an instrument to subject the political opponents to repressions and to punish adversaries in conflict situations. With the view of preventing this practice, in 2006 the UN Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, according to which, the enforced disappearance was denounced to be an international crime.

Due to the armed conflicts on this country’s territory about 2,000 persons were disappeared in Georgia. About 1,500 ethnically Georgians are considered to be missing following the conflicts in the 90s, including, about 200 ethnically Abkhazians, about 100 ethnically Ossetians, and following the war of 200 6 Ossetians and 35 Georgians.

The Public Defender offers his sympathy to the family members and the relatives of the missing people and will honor the memory of these persons. The Public Defender of Georgia welcomes the cooperation between Tbilisi and Sokhumi, as a result of which, several burials in Abkhazia were opened in 2013-2015, the persons were identified and the bodies transferred. It is important that the parties keep on cooperating with the view of searching missing persons and assisting their families.

At the same time it is important to investigate the cases on the persons disappeared during the war of 2008 that was repeatedly highlighted by the Public Defender.

In 2013 the Public Defender of Georgia addressed for the first time the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia with the recommendation to bring the Georgian legislation in correspondence with the international standards concerning the ratification of 2006 the UN Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. This recommendation was shared by the Parliament of Georgia under the resolutions of 2014 and 2015. Despite this fact, the convention ratification process had yet to be launched. I believe that the ratification of the Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance will be an important step made by Georgia to struggle against this crime.