In April, Lebanon marked 48 years since the start of its civil war, and – almost five decades on from the deadly conflict – the anniversary brought a painful reminder to the families of the thousands who went missing during the 15-year unrest.
There is currently no public database or exact numbers of people who went missing during the civil war between 1975-1990, where an estimated 150,000 people were killed.

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A woman holds a picture of her son who has been missing since the 1975-90 civil war during a sit-in to enquire about his fate, in Beirut May 13, 2009. A display showing the portraits of people who disappeared during the civil war is seen in the background. (Reuters)

While the exact figure is unknown, an estimated 17,000 Lebanese were kidnapped or “disappeared” during the unrest. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) – which continues to work to find answers for loved ones left behind – told Al Arabiya English that painful answers remain for the families left in limbo.

Lebanon was shattered by its 15-year-long war. It reshaped villages and neighborhoods in which Muslims and Christians had lived side by side for centuries. Hundreds of thousands of people retreated into separate enclaves controlled by sectarian militias.

While the war may have ended more than three decades ago, the relatives of the thousands of men and women who remain unaccounted for have been left with lingering loss and uncertainty.

Some of those missing are believed to have been arrested or captured by the various forces and militias involved in the civil war – Lebanese, Syrian, Palestinian and Israeli, according to a 2013 Amnesty International report. Others may have been killed in the violence or simply disappeared.

Left in limbo

A woman holds a picture of her relative who went missing during Lebanon's civil war (1975-1990) as Francois Zimeray (seated, 2nd L), France's top human rights official, speaks with people in front of the U.N. headquarters in Beirut July 1, 2011. The people believe their relatives who went missing during the civil war are held in Syrian jails. (Reuters)

The ICRC says the families of those left behind still need answers.

“Unfortunately, families of the missing continue to have unmet needs,” Sandy Khalil, of the ICRC’s Lebanon Missing Program, told Al Arabiya English. “During the conflict, all communities suffered and have amongst them families of missing: no-one was left untouched.”

She continued, “Wounds of the families of the missing will still be open as long as they do not receive answers on the fate of their loved missing ones.”

Since 2012, the ICRC in Lebanon has been engaged in a comprehensive program to prepare the ground for a state-led process to clarify the fate of persons who went missing since 1975, said Khalil.

And since 2015, the organization has been collecting and storing biological reference samples from relatives of missing persons for future DNA analysis.

“This includes efforts to help the relevant authorities assume their legal obligations and increase their capacity to do so, but also the collection of information such as Ante Disappearance Data and Biological reference samples (swabs, from which DNA can be extracted), which will enable the authorities to identify missing persons,” said Khalil.

Search for the missing

People hold pictures of their relatives who went missing during Lebanon's civil war (1975-1990) to enquire about their fate during a sit-in organized by the Support of Lebanese in Detention and Exile Organisation, marking the 37th anniversary of the start of the Lebanese Civil War, which ended in 1990, near the parliament in Beirut, April 13, 2012. (Reuters)

The ICRC’s work was given a boost in 2018 with the promulgation of the Law on the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons (or Law 105) in November 2018, which “marked a significant milestone for the families, authorities, and Lebanese society” a guide by ReliefWeb, a humanitarian information service by the UN OCHA, said.

“From a legal perspective, Law 105 constitutes the first step on the path to establishing a comprehensive approach for the clarification of the fate and whereabouts of the missing and forcibly disappeared persons,” according to the guide.

In mid-2020, members of the National Commission were appointed as individuals responsible for translating the provisions of Law 105 into reality and tasked with conducting “the search and identification process.”

However, the ICRC says the National Commission is still not fully operational.

In the meantime, the ICRC has been collecting information on missing persons before their disappearance, including interviewing their families across the country.

“To date, the ICRC has collected more than 2,000 biological reference samples and more than 3,000 ante-disappearance data questionnaires related to around 3,000 missing persons, which represents only a portion of the total number of persons who went missing,” said Khalil.

This information is being passed monthly to the National Commission to help them search for the missing.

“What is clear from ICRC’s collection of cases is that all sides in the conflict were victims of and perpetrators of missing persons, thus it is the responsibility of all parties to furnish information on the fate of the missing to the National Commission in accordance with its humanitarian mandate. Consequently, all stakeholders should be ready to engage with the National Commission,” said Khalil.

“The data gathered, and which are to be handed over to the National Commission, should significantly facilitate the commission’s work to clarify the fate of missing persons and to provide answers to their families.”

Khalil said the ICRC welcomes the creation of the National Commission. Still, she said far more needs to be done to provide answers to the families of the missing, including ensuring the Commission has the “adequate financial and political support to fulfill its humanitarian mandate by serving as a bridge between the international community, Lebanese authorities, and the families.”

Need for ‘concrete’ action

Khalil added: “The Commission should have adequate representation in its commissioners nominated by civil society and the Lebanese state, sufficient resources to conduct its work, including technical capacities in the fields of mental health and psychosocial support, forensic sciences, and data management.”

She continued, “Therefore, the real milestone will be to see Law 105 transformed from paper to concrete and tangible actions."

She said this requires authorities to allocate the necessary budget and premises to allow the members of the Commission to implement their work fully.

The ICRC also believes that justice is a need and a right of the families of the missing.

“Wounds of the families will still be open as long as they don’t receive answers on the fate of their missing loved ones. Therefore, the ICRC focuses its efforts on bringing answers to the families in order to end this painful limbo and calls on all stakeholders, including authorities, civil society actors and international community, to work with the National Commission and help them clarify the fate of missing persons.”

Against the economic and social backdrop in Lebanon, the ICRC considers it essential that the international community financially and diplomatically supports the National Commission, which is a concrete initiative to address the needs of the families in Lebanon.

The ICRC has said in a report, “reality has shown that the need to know is passed on from generation to generation, and while unfortunately, many parents have passed away, children, grandchildren, and other relatives of the missing and forcibly disappeared persons are still looking for their loved ones, and the ICRC will continue to support them in their search.”

In the same report, Maytham, the grandson of Hussein, a person missing since 1975, said: “I will keep on looking for the truth. A day must come where we should be able to say, ‘this is what happened to the missing people.’ We cannot turn the page without knowing.”

Some eight years ago, in 2015, the ICRC launched its accompaniment program, which seeks to support families by helping them cope with the absence of their missing relatives and meet the psychological, psychosocial, legal and administrative needs that result from the disappearance of a loved one.

“Accompanying these families is of vital importance to alleviate their burden,” said Khalil. “The accompaniment program was based on the ICRC Family Needs Assessment study in 2012 which interviewed around 324 families all over the country, in order to identify and quantify their priority needs.”

The ICRC also supported the Committee of the Families of the Kidnapped and Disappeared in Lebanon (CFKDL), founded in 1982, seven years after the beginning of the war, in response to the growing number of missing people. It helps them raise awareness of Law 105 and the National Commission’s existence amongst the families of the missing, through outreach activities, workshops and strategic events, such as memorialization activities and the International Day of the Disappeared, marked annually on August 30.

In 1982, Adnan Halwani, an official in the organization for Communist Action in Lebanon, was abducted in the western portion of Beirut. His wife, Wadad Halwani, made a famous radio call to meet with other people in the same situation as her.

The wish of the families is to find and release the people still detained and to receive the remains of the dead in order to bury them.

More international support

Khalil believes that multiple steps could be taken to raise the plight of the families of the missing in Lebanon on a global level and ensure more parities and organizations work together to find the answers so many are looking for.

That includes raising awareness of Law 105 and the National Commission’s mandate and mobilizing adequate political and financial support from international actors – including diplomatic representations – to help the Commission become fully operational.

Khalil also believes missing people should become more of a “thematic” global humanitarian concern.

“Once the hostilities cease and [a] peace agreement signed, the missing remains and a long and far-reaching after effect of the conflict ricocheting across admin, legal, social, psychological and economic aspects of those left behind,” Khalil said. “Clarifying the fate of the missing is an important obligation to integrate in the agreements with all parties of the conflict to cultivate the necessary political will to address it and not leave it off the post-conflict agenda.”

“(We also need to) organize the exchange of international expertise between the National Commission and other similar national mechanisms,” she added – pointing to similar global organizations such as the Committee of the Missing Persons in Cyprus, which aims to locate, identify and return to their relatives the remains of those who went missing in Cyprus between 1963 and 1974.

“Such exchanges would allow the National Commission in Lebanon to engage in peer-to-peer discussions and learn from counterparts how to set up an effective mechanism in a politically challenged environment while managing various stakeholders, responding to the families’ needs and safeguarding their data.”

Khalil said countless families are still waiting for an answer to clarify the fate and whereabouts of their missing loved ones.

“These families’ right to know is legitimate as per the Law105/2018 and should be answered – no matter how many years have passed.”

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