Experts in Baku urge action as missing persons surge worldwide and in Ukraine

Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide remain missing in wars, as experts who met in Baku warned that political will, not technology, is the obstacle to identifying them. The figures have continued to grow, rising 70% between 2019 and 2024, according to the ICRC. In Ukraine alone, around 280,000 people are registered as missing as of September 2026, with an estimated 10,000 new cases added every month, according to the same data. Government officials, forensic experts, and diplomats met at the fourth International Conference on Missing Persons in Baku, under the Baku Dialogue on Missing Persons, to discuss how countries can cooperate to identify the dead and locate those who disappeared in both historical and ongoing conflicts.