Inherited and unchanging throughout life, DNA is a powerful metric for identifying human remains. Technical improvements in using it have advanced over the decades; however, ethical, administrative and bureaucratic barriers restrict its use, particularly for transnational identification. This is apparent…
Families of people who go missing on a migration journey either do not know how to seek government support or are sceptical of doing so, and States have done almost nothing to address this issue. There appears to be little…
Bereaved families have the right to truth, to justice and to closure. These fundamental rights are recognised under international human rights law, including under the right to dignity, the right to life and the right to family and private life.[1]…
The search for missing migrants is a transnational, even transcontinental, undertaking requiring cooperation among a broad range of actors.[1] A global intergovernmental framework for such cooperation had been lacking, but this changed with the inclusion (at ICRC’s instigation) of Objective…
Many migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean do not survive the journey. Others just disappear. With every migrant who goes missing, there is a family longing for closure. “There’s not an event or holiday where we don’t think of him.…
“There is no health without mental health.” UN Secretary-General António Guterres reaffirmed this simple but powerful message in May 2020.[1] In a timely effort to sound the alarm, he cautioned that a global upsurge in the prevalence and severity of…
We had not expected to be publishing yet another issue of FMR under COVID-19 restrictions – and to be welcoming new Co-Editor Alice Philip to the team without even being able to meet in person! But thanks to the collaboration…
The earliest use of the term ‘psychosocial’ in the context of forced migration that I have found is by Hertha Kraus in a 1939 Special Issue of the The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.[1] Her…
Many people living in areas affected by violence and conflict experience a negative impact on their mental health, and one in five develop a mental health condition, which is much higher than for populations not affected by conflict.[1] Affected people…
Refugees in Egypt, like those across the world, struggle to find an adequate quality of life. Asylum seekers come to Egypt hoping that their stay will be temporary, they will be cared for by UNHCR and they will be resettled…