About 24,000 people added to Register of Missing Persons in Ukraine

The Unified Register of Missing Persons currently lists more than 24,000 people, and the fate of 7,000 of them is unknown.

Commissioner for Persons Missing in Special Circumstances Oleh Kotenko said this during a round table at Ukrinform.

"In the register of missing persons, which was opened in early May, we currently have more than 24,000 people listed there. There is some progress because we have already found more than 8,000 people, about 60% of them are living people who were in captivity," he said.

According to Kotenko, there is also information about 8,000 people about their whereabouts or deaths.

"Why do I think that 60-65% of the people we are looking for are really alive? Because we understand the number of prisoners in colonies and detention centers, and we know the number of wanted people we want to return home," the Commissioner added.

At the same time, Kotenko emphasized that there is no data on the whereabouts of about 7,000 people.

He reminded that the search for missing persons has been ongoing since 2014.

"After 2014 (before the start of the full-scale war - ed.) we were looking for the military... now there are 65 people - military personnel who went missing, and 28 of them have a DNA match. The relatives do not agree with this, so we have a certain problem with this. And we have more than 300 people who are still missing, missing, we do not know their whereabouts. This concerns people who have been missing since 2014," he explained.

As reported, the families of the missing persons can call the hotline at (066) 053-11-39 to receive free legal advice. The hotline is open from Monday to Friday, from 9:00 to 18:00.