Angolans given another chance at tracing lost loved ones

Relatives of people unaccounted for in Angola now have another chance of finding out the fate of lost loved ones, thanks to a new tracing initiative by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Olivier Moeckli, ICRC spokesman in Angola, told IRIN on Thursday that the ICRC had helped to reunite 350 children with their parents or relatives since the end of Angola's 27-year-long civil war. "As part of its traditional activities, and in cooperation with the Angola Red Cross, the ICRC has received over 3,000 tracing requests since the beginning of the year from people who have lost contact with their relatives," an ICRC statement said. "In addition to the procedures ordinarily used to locate persons unaccounted for, the ICRC publishes a magazine called Gazeta, which gives particulars of people being sought, people looking for their relatives and registered unaccompanied children." Moeckli explained that Gazeta was made available throughout Angola and in neighbouring countries, where there were concentrations of Angolans who had fled the fighting in their country. But since last week search efforts have been broadened by the addition of an internet database of the information contained in Gazeta. The website (www.familylinks.icrc.org) is in Portuguese and English and aims to facilitate the tracing of Angolans living abroad as refugees or residents. "The site will be updated regularly as tracing requests are collected both in the country and abroad. Over 100 families have already been reunited using this service," ICRC said. Moeckli added that no matter where they were in the world, Angolans now had the opportunity to log on to the web and look for lost loved ones. He explained that family tracing efforts, which are led by the Ministry for Social Reinsertion, were important for reconciliation and healing in post-conflict Angola. The ICRC recognised the need for tracing activities almost immediately after the end of the civil war. "Just after the end of the conflict, when the peace agreement was signed, suddenly the whole country was accessible to the humanitarian agencies like the WFP [World Food Programme]... and the ICRC realised very soon that there were a lot of people moving around the country wanting to find relatives who had been lost during the years of conflict," he said. "So through its link with the Angolan Red Cross, and given that tracing is one of the traditional activities of the ICRC, it was apparent that tracing was one of the most useful activities the ICRC could perform and it was given priority," Moeckli added. Each week, tracing messages are broadcast on Angolan television's Ponto de Reencontro (meeting point) programme. These messages will be available on-line soon at www.icrc.org/eng.