Today, around 130 non-State armed groups (NSAGs) are parties to armed conflicts, and as a result of the unprecedentedly high number of armed conflicts around the world, hundreds of thousands of families are separated. In many cases, communication lines are completely cut, leading to a total breakdown in family contact. At the same time, the number of missing people continues to grow: in 2024 alone, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) registered more than 56,000 new missing persons cases across the world, the highest yearly increase in at least two decades, resulting in a current total of nearly 255,000 cases that the ICRC is actively following up on. Detainees are often held without their personal details being registered or their detention being communicated to their families. Moreover, the dead are not always treated with respect and at times become “bargaining chips” between warring parties, impeding identification efforts and the return of the deceased to their families. As a result, families suffer great anguish not knowing where family members are or whether they are alive or dead. Not knowing the fate or whereabouts of a loved one and not being able to mourn the dead are some of the deepest unseen wounds of armed conflict.

Clarifying the fate and whereabouts of missing people is a humanitarian imperative and a legal obligation. In its operations in over ninety countries globally, the ICRC witnesses the pain and suffering experienced by the families of the missing. At the same time, however, it has also documented countless daily efforts by parties to armed conflict to prevent family separation and to clarify the fate and whereabouts of missing people. It has observed efforts to treat the dead with dignity, search for and identify them, and return them to their families.

This new ICRC report, entitled Non-State Armed Groups and the Separated, Missing and Dead: Obligations under IHL and Examples of How to Implement Them,Footnote ¹ presents the IHL obligations of NSAGs with respect to the separated, missing and dead, together with a selection of examples that show how armed groups have implemented these obligations in practice. The report is the result of in-depth research conducted by the ICRC, revealing unique insights into operational realities through an analysis of documents found in the ICRC Archives, interviews with NSAGs, NSAG doctrine (such as codes of conduct and policy documents), and public reports. The report complements a recent publication by the ICRC on NSAGs and the treatment of detaineesFootnote ² and an ICRC handbook for armed groups on reducing civilian harm in urban warfare.Footnote ³