The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that over 5,000 missing South Sudanese citizens, who were displaced as a result of the 2013 conflict the erupted in the country, have been traced and reunited with families since 2018. Pierre Dorbes, head of the ICRC delegation in South Sudan, says the organization is committed towards engaging with South Sudan’s Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, to trace other missing persons and reunite them with their immediate families.

“We urge the transitional government of national unity to support efforts to trace the missing people. The families who are missing their beloved ones need support specifically the elderly people,” Dorbes said in a statement.

Calls from the ICRC urging the transitional government of national unity to support efforts to trace the missing people, were welcomed by Kot Bol Nyuar, the undersecretary in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, who says efforts to help locate more missing persons and reunite them with their next of kin, have intensified.

“We are making effort to make sure all the missing persons in the country are found and reunited with their families. It is time for peace and every citizen deserves to enjoy this relative calm with their beloved ones,” Nyuar told an international news outlet.

ICRC says that more than 4,000 cases of missing persons displaced by conflict and violence are being followed up; the agency adds that families of missing persons often experience mental and emotional trauma and hence the need to offer them psychosocial support.

The conflict which broke out in South Sudan’s capital, Juba in December 2013, left an estimated 400,000 people displaced, with millions fleeing into neighboring countries.