A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, death in a location where they cannot be found, or many other reasons. In most parts of the world, a missing person will usually be found quickly. While criminal abductions are some of the most widely reported missing person cases, these account for only 2–5% of missing children in Europe.
Susan Billig, mother of Amy Billig, holds a placard appealing for information regarding her daughter nine days after her March 5, 1974, disappearance.
The mother of a missing teenager holds a reward poster seeking information as to her child's whereabouts.
Torchlight procession on the 23rd of February 2019 in Trondheim, Norway for the search of missing boy Odin Andre Hagen Jacobsen who has been missing since 18th November 2018. The people protest to demand from the police to strengthen their efforts and for the media to give the case more coverage.
A sailor assigned to Naval Computer Telecommunications Station (NCTS) Guam, fingerprints Alexis Kosak during the 11th annual Project KidCare event held at Agana Shopping Center. The project's goal is to assist local authorities with locating and recovering missing children and inform the public about ways to prevent child abduction.
International Commission on Missing Persons
The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) is an intergovernmental organization that addresses the issue of persons missing as a result of armed conflicts, violations of human rights, and natural disasters. It is headquartered in The Hague, The Netherlands. It assists governments in the exhumation of mass graves and DNA identification of missing persons, provides support to family associations of missing persons, and assists in creating strategies and institutions to search for missing persons. In December 2014, a treaty was signed which established the commission as an International Organisation. The treaty has five signatories: the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Belgium and Luxembourg. It designates The Hague (Netherlands) as the seat of the organization.
CMP's Podrinje Identification Project (PIP) was formed to deal with the identification primarily of victims of 1995 Srebrenica massacre. PIP includes a facility for storing, processing, and handling exhumed remains. Much of the remains are only fragments or commingled body fragments since they were recovered from secondary mass graves. The photo depicts one section of the refrigerated mortuary.
