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Historical Background of the Missing Persons Issue in Lebanon

  1. The outbreak of the war in Lebanon, which continued until 1990 and resulted in the disappearance and loss of thousands of people from different backgrounds and regions of the country.

  2. The Committee of the Families of the Kidnapped and Disappeared in Lebanon was established, carrying forward for decades the families' demand to know the fate of their loved ones.

  3. The Taif Agreement was signed in 1989, establishing a framework for ending the war and rebuilding state institutions. The main military hostilities ended in 1990 without a comprehensive resolution of the issue of thousands of missing and forcibly disappeared persons or clarification of their fate.

  4. General Amnesty Law No. 84/1991 was enacted, covering, subject to its provisions and exceptions, crimes committed before 28 March 1991, without establishing a mechanism to address the issue of missing and forcibly disappeared persons.

  5. Law No. 434/1995 concerning the establishment of the death of missing persons was enacted, while families continued to demand information about the fate of their missing relatives.

  6. An official commission was established to investigate the fate of kidnapped and missing persons. Its report referred, among other matters, to sites believed to contain mass graves.

    In December of the same year, a number of detainees were released from Syrian prisons, some of whom had been considered missing, raising renewed questions about the fate of missing persons.

  7. The “Commission for Receiving Complaints from Families of Missing Persons” was established pursuant to Decision No. 1/2001 to receive applications concerning relatives believed to still be alive and to seek relevant information from public administrations, institutions and other concerned bodies.

  8. A committee was established to address the issue of Lebanese detainees in Syria, followed by a joint Lebanese-Syrian committee to follow up on the issue.

  9. The Government committed in its ministerial statement to following up on the issue of detainees in Syria, clarifying the fate of missing persons in Lebanon and working towards the establishment of a national body to address the issue.

  10. The Council of State issued a decision affirming the right of families of missing persons to know the fate of their relatives and to access the investigation file concerning the work of the official commission established in 2000.

    In the same year, Members of Parliament Ghassan Moukheiber and Ziad Kadri submitted a proposed law on missing and forcibly disappeared persons, based on a draft developed by families of the missing and civil society organizations.

  11. In November, Parliament adopted Law No. 105/2018 on Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons, which enshrined the right of family members to know the fate of their missing or forcibly disappeared relatives and provided for the establishment of the National Commission for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared.

  12. On 3 July, Decree No. 6570/2020 was issued, constituting the National Commission for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared and appointing its members pursuant to Law No. 105/2018.