Reconnecting families: Preventing separation, searching for the missing, reuniting loved ones

The Central Tracing Agency, founded in 1870, is at the heart of our efforts around the globe to protect and restore family links, to search for and identify missing persons, to protect the dignity of the dead and to ensure that the needs of missing people's families are addressed. Enshrined in the Geneva Conventions, it is a permanent structure within the ICRC that assists parties to conflicts and prevents family separation and disappearances by collecting and transmitting information as a neutral intermediary.

The Family Links Network is composed of 192 National Societies, ICRC delegations and the IFRC. We work together, according to the same humanitarian principles, as a unique worldwide network with a local footprint in every community to help keep families together and address the needs of those separated or missing because of humanitarian crises, such as a conflict or a natural disaster, or in the context of migration.

According to its mandate under the Geneva Conventions, the CTA created a specialized team based in Geneva that collects, centralizes and transmits information about the fate and whereabouts of both military personnel and civilians deprived of their liberty after falling into the hands of the enemy during the course of the international armed conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine. 

The ICRC, together with the Red Cross and Red Crescent Family Links Network, uses a number of tools to restore communication or keep family members in touch: free telephone or video calls, which are the quickest, most direct solution, and Red Cross messages (brief letters) that allow families to exchange news when calls are not possible and to which pictures and official documents can be attached. Salamats are short messages delivered orally in person or by telephone. During emergencies, families can use pre-printed messages that are short and easy to complete, such as Anxious for news or Safe and well/I am alive. These can be posted on the Family Links website or published or broadcasted on local or national media to reach relatives.

Keeping records of vulnerable categories of people as early as possible is key to preventing disappearances. During international armed conflicts, states must set up National Information Bureaux to collect information on protected persons in enemy hands, such as prisoners, civilian internees and the dead, and pass it on to the other side through the Central Tracing Agency (CTA). When visiting detainees, the ICRC ensures that their families are informed and keeps track of their fate and whereabouts. The CTA also draws up and keeps registers of particularly vulnerable categories of people, such as unaccompanied minors. 

Searching for missing persons is complex, requiring search methods tailored to each situation. Field work on individual cases, data analysis, humanitarian dialogue with authorities and parties to a conflict, access to areas that are difficult to reach, forensic science, including work to identify the deceased, and new technologies are some of the ways we collect, consolidate and triangulate information to search for answers about the fate and whereabouts of missing people on behalf of their families. Preserving information as long as necessary until further clues allow a final answer to be provided is also part of the search efforts.

State authorities bear the primary responsibility for prevention and response in cases of missing persons and for meeting the needs of families. However, the ICRC plays an important role by drawing attention to the issue at national and multilateral levels, making bilateral representations on specific cases to obtain information on the fate and whereabouts of missing people, asking the authorities to investigate, initiating exchanges between information systems and arranging repatriations across front lines. We can also offer advice and technical guidance and build the capacities of national and local systems to carry out searches and address the needs of families.

We produce online tools to assist families in their search for missing loved ones, such as Trace the Face, and for people on the move at risk of going missing during conflict, migration or humanitarian crises, such as RedSafe, a digital application that provides access to safe and secure information and services provided by the ICRC and our trusted partners. 

To improve our services and enhance our impact, we develop new technologies that advance our work to restore family links, making our teams and partners around the world more efficient, whether by using artificial intelligence and advanced algorithms to support our searches or by developing new ways to connect and analyse data across platforms and geopolitical borders. Our service has never stopped innovating in the 150 years it has been operating.

Not knowing the fate of a loved one can put families in a state of permanent uncertainty. This kind of loss leaves a person searching for answers, which complicates and delays the grieving process and often results in unresolved grief. In this painful psychological process, families must learn to cope with a new family dynamic and find the strength to keep dealing with pressing humanitarian needs, including legal, social, administrative, economic and health-related difficulties. 

Often the primary actors in the search process, we support the families of missing people and accompany them as they learn to live with uncertainty in the long term should they not receive information about their missing loved ones. It is the ICRC’s approach of taking time to talk with the families and listen to their challenges and needs that is so greatly appreciated and impactful. We also strive to empower families to advocate for the missing and join forces to support each other.

Reconnecting families and restoring family links (RFL) effectively and efficiently requires the processing of large amounts of personal data. The RFL Code of Conduct on Data Protection was adopted in 2015 as a tool for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement to use to ensure the protection of the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals using these services, in particular, the protection of their personal data. The Code sets out the minimum principles, commitments and procedures with which ICRC, National Society and IFRC personnel must comply when processing personal data as part of RFL activities.

The Centre, set up in partnership with the Kenya Red Cross Society, the Australian Red Cross and the British Red Cross, supports the efforts of the authorities, the Movement and practitioners, including the families themselves, on the issue of separated, missing and deceased persons, through advocacy, research, technical support, capacity-building and knowledge development and exchange. 

The Missing Persons Global Response website is a platform that facilitates knowledge exchange, learning and cooperation among practitioners working on the issue of missing persons worldwide. It brings together content and resources contributed by the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, universities, research institutes, (I)NGOs, UN agencies, family associations, governments, donors and other initiatives.

Missing persons and their families are protected by international humanitarian law in international and non-international armed conflicts and by international human rights law in both wartime and peacetime. States and parties to armed conflict need to implement the obligations deriving from these frameworks to prevent people from going missing, account for those who do and respond to the needs of their families. Concrete actions include preventing family separation, providing information to families, ensuring proper management of the dead, strengthening medico-legal systems and establishing relevant mechanisms and structures, such as National Information Bureaux in international armed conflicts, in line with existing obligations under international law. 

Our archives, which date back to our earliest tracing agency set up in 1870, provide a safe and trusted repository, preserving and safeguarding information, ensuring that missing persons retain their identities long after their disappearance and providing a further source of vital evidence and information for future generations who continue the search decades later.