On May 29, the 16th meeting of the coordination mechanism consisting of Georgian and Abkhaz participants was held in the city of Istanbul. The meeting was chaired by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as a neutral mediator.

Until now, as a result of the work of the coordination mechanism, 526 human remains have been found and exhumed. 285 of them have been identified and handed over to their families for proper burial. This was made possible by the joint efforts and active involvement of the participants of the ongoing, clearly humanitarian process.

At the meeting, in addition to the results achieved in finding out the whereabouts of the disappeared people, attention was focused on the need to find further information about the graves and the issues related to the identification process.

The participants shared the processed information they had, which would facilitate the process of further tracing and identifying additional people. Within the coordination mechanism, 1,860 people are still missing, their families are eagerly waiting for concrete answers and an end to years of uncertainty.

The participants of the meeting agreed on practical steps to collect and exchange information with greater efforts and to conduct the process of searching for missing persons at a faster pace.