“Families of missing people are lacking the required attention and support”
WHEN I moved from Iran in 2023 to work as the head of delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the Philippines, one of the first things I did was to visit Marawi to see firsthand the impact of the 2017 conflict and understand the remaining humanitarian concerns.
I saw that Marawi’s most affected area – consisting of 24 barangays, home to 65,000 people – was still a ghost town. Badly damaged buildings were overgrown with vegetation.
Many residences were yet to be rebuilt, often from the ground up. However, there were some signs of development, like the setting up of small businesses and new public infrastructure.
Fast forward to today: it’s been eight years since the start of the Marawi conflict. Although significant efforts have been made by the Philippine government, most notably the creation of the Marawi Compensation Board, families of missing people are lacking the required attention and support.
Over 300 cases of missing people registered with the ICRC remain open, without clarity or answers.
These families have been suffering greatly from the anguish of not knowing the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones, and from the uncertainty surrounding the potential identification of recovered remains.
Beyond this emotional burden, the families face significant financial and legal challenges. They have repeatedly expressed their challenges in obtaining legal documents recognized by all state agencies – certifying the absence or presumed death of their missing loved one.
Formally resolving the legal status of a missing person is essential for their families.
It would enable all families of missing people to overcome the barriers that prevent them from accessing social benefits, pensions and property rights. This could be done if the national authorities take steps to streamline or adapt current procedures and policies.
If these persistent, systemic issues affecting all missing people are resolved by the concerned agencies, their families will finally be able to move forward.
Aside from supporting 400 families in their search for answers about what has happened to their loved ones who went missing in the Marawi conflict, our supplementary program has also included financial and as well as mental health and psychosocial support from 2017 to 2024.
By providing cash grants under our microeconomic initiative program to set up small businesses, families gained income to send their children to school and pay for their daily needs.
These businesses have allowed them to live in dignity. Families of the missing have also since been supporting each other and organizing into smaller groups, serving as a platform for their shared experiences and other concerns.
Additionally, we supported the Philippine National Police-Forensic Group so they could collect and process DNA samples for identifying human remains buried in the Maqbara and Dalipuga cemeteries.
The ICRC took certain measures in the Maqbara cemetery that will enable remains to be identified in the future. We have also donated forensic examination material and provided support to authorities through capacity-building sessions.
But humanitarian organizations like the ICRC can only do so much. The families need – and have the right – to know what has happened to their missing loved ones. The families also have a right to know where their bodies are buried.
This is not just a humanitarian necessity. Providing them with answers is a legal obligation. The obligation to prevent people from going missing and to account for people reported missing is enshrined in the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, to which the Philippine government is a party.
We urge the authorities to provide answers to the families as soon as possible for reasons highlighted recently by the ICRC’s president Mirjana Spoljaric:
“The resolution of missing cases and the reunification of families means relief from the collective anguish and resentment that can be an unmovable obstacle to peace.”
A collaborative and solution-oriented approach is needed to identify the significant number of individuals buried in the Maqbara and Dalipuga cemeteries.
As we mark the eighth anniversary of the Marawi conflict, let us pause and remember those who are missing. But more than just remembering, let us do right by them by fulfilling their families’ shared hope for more support and for closure.
Sophia H. Omar Aminolla, who is still searching for her missing brother, said it best during an event organized to commemorate the disappeared: “If we stop remembering and honoring missing people, it means we have stopped searching for them or abandoned our quest.
“It is like burying them alive somewhere. Pursuing the truth means living with dignity, honor and value. I don’t want to stop the search. Never!”
(The author is Head of Delegation, International Committee of the Red Cross Philippines based in Makati City.)