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Wednesday, 7 June, 2000, 14:07 GMT 15:07 UK
3,000 missing in Kosovo
More than 3,000 people remain unaccounted for in the wake of the Kosovo conflict, according to a document published by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Most of these are presumed dead, officials say. The ICRC says the majority of the missing 3,368 people are men, mostly from the Kosovo Albanian community - though some Serbs and Roma are also still unaccounted for.
The report is also intended to reassure the families of the missing that their relatives have not been forgotten.
Abductions Just over 2,000 of these are believed to have been abducted by Yugoslav security forces before or during last year's Nato attacks on Kosovo.
But the organisation has failed to locate several hundred Serbs and Roma, many of whom disappeared after the conflict ended - and the last appeal, four months ago, has failed to yield a breakthrough. Alain Kolly, head of the ICRC mission in the Kosovo capital, Pristina, called on the Albanian and Serbian communities bring an end to their ongoing dispute.
Hopes fade The head of ICRC operations in the Balkans, Andreas Wigger, says the chances of finding many of the missing alive are fading. "We have unfortunately to assume that most of these people are dead, based on our experience in other contexts," he told the BBC. The ICRC figures suggest, however, that the earlier estimates by the United States of the number of people killed in the Kosovo conflict was inflated. The US put the death toll at 10,000 - well above the 2,500 bodies which have been exhumed, and the 3,000 missing people which the ICRC presumes to be dead.
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