 The International Committee of the Red Cross ICRC says Nigeria accounts for 24,000 missing people. The largest missing caseload on the continent, representing over half of those registered as missing in Africa. ICRC's Public Relations Officer Aliyu Daubay said more than 44,000 people across Africa have been registered as missing, with children accounting for over 45% of the cases at the time they were missing. According to him, August 30th is marked as the International Day of the Disappeared and that ICRC stands with the families and relatives of the missing and commemorates with them, expressing its solidarity. He said that the ICRC assures them that they are not alone and their loved ones are not forgotten. And joining us via Zoom is Aliyu Daubay, the Communication Specialist International Committee of the Red Cross. Thanks for joining us, Mr. Daubay. Thank you for inviting me. Good evening. Good evening. Great to have you here. Let's first of all start with defining what it means to be a missing person. To define what the missing person is is actually for the people whose families are missing would be able to tell us exactly how this is in them. But for the experience we have in the International Committee of the Red Cross, a missing person in a family is making the family to go through a lot of trauma, a lot of psychological and psychosocial mental illness that they have within them. Not knowing the certainty whether this missing person is dead, whether this missing person is alive, what condition he is in is actually something that is really, really traumatic in the minds of these people that are going. So that is why a day like today is set aside for the organizations like ours to sit down and make sure that these people whose relatives are missing should understand that yes, there are organizations, there are people out there that are concerned about the plight of them about the missing people. They are not alone in this. They are also having people that are really concerned about the plight they are passing through and the need for them to get answers to the questions they always ask. Where is our missing person? Where is our breadwinner? They need answers and these answers should be provided to these people. Alright, and Nigeria, according to your report, has about 24,000 missing people. More than 50% of the records across Africa has the spate of kidnapping and insecurity in the country contributed to these figures. The mandate of the International Committee of the Red Cross is mainly to support and assist people that are affected by armed conflict and violence. So these figures are specifically figures that are drawn from the northeast of Nigeria. It has nothing to do with the northwest of Nigeria or other places where we have series of kidnappings. These figures, 90% of these figures are actually coming from the northeast of Nigeria. And if we talk about the northeast of Nigeria, we are talking about the states of Borno, Adamawa, and the European states. These are the main states that are seriously affected by the armed conflict going on in these areas. The figures are specifically to these areas, not related to what is going on in the northwest or other parts of Nigeria. Okay, and that really even makes it more shocking. So that brings forth my next question. So the figures that you have, are they sincere records or these are just estimates? Do we have a register? Do we have proper documentation of every single person who is a missing person in Nigeria or these are just estimates? Thank you very much for this question. I think this is one of the key questions that we should be asking. Is this actually the actual figure of missing people for the International Committee of the Red Cross? It's just like a tip of the iceberg. So it's only people that are aware that we are rendering these services that come to us and register a complaint. And that is where we take it as a register to say, OK, we are registering your relative as a missing person, and we will go ahead and start searching for this person. Thousands of people perhaps don't know we are doing this job. And maybe perhaps they need to be reunited with their own families. So in essence, we can say these are estimations of people that have come to us and requested that we should ask such for their loved ones. We feel that there are also a large number of people who don't know we are conducting this activity and who also needs to be reunited with their family, with their missing family. So I think you are right. It's really worrisome. You know, in the time that the ICRC has been at this work, is there records of people being found? And what are the most common cases where they found? Are they in a totally different country? Are they in IDP camps in a totally different city? Or what exactly is it? And would you, of course, be inviting more people to share with the ICRC of missing persons that they might be aware of? Absolutely. I would say we would use this platform to invite people whose relatives are missing to come to the Red Cross, to come to the ICRC, to go to the Nigerian Red Cross Society and register their complaints. This way, we would be able to have perhaps more details of the missing people in the country. But generally, it is a very, very daunting task to look for a missing person. There are so many categories of looking for people that are missing. First of all, is to try to look for these people physically, so that we will be able to reunite them with their families physically. When I say physically, is to get someone who is missing and bring him back to the family. The last reunification we did was in June, sorry, in July, last month in July, where we were able to reunite a vulnerable adult of 90 years with his family that he got separated from for five years. So, but then, like I said, physical reunification is something that is actually very, very difficult. In 2019 to 2021, we were only able to reunite about 60 people with their own families physically. However, we have been able to reunite over 300 people within last year and this year. What do I mean by reunification? What I mean by reunification here is that you can find people in detention areas. Most of the times when people get separated, it doesn't mean that they are missing. Missing can be a lot. People arrested by the security forces are also missing because the families don't know that they are arrested by the security forces. So, we work very closely with the security agencies to make sure that missing people that are in detention are allowed to get in touch with their families, not necessarily to tell them where they are being held, a detention facility that they are being held, but at least the families will have this comfort to know that the breadwinner is still alive, is still healthy, but then in detention, this is one aspect. So, in this case, we try to use what we call red cross messages to pass to the families to know that the breadwinner is alive. Also, we have what we call telephone conversation. If we find someone in Yawunde in Cameroon, for example, or a chat on Nigeria Republic, it's a little difficult to move him down to Nigeria. You have to pass through a lot of protocol. So, what we do is just to connect them, to reunite them via a telephone conversation first before we move to actual physical reunification. This is really, really draining. Finally, before we let you go, I'm guessing you can confirm that there is an ICRC office in every state across the country. And for people who have concerns, who might also need to walk into your offices, they're welcome. This activity is not only done by the ICRC, it's done also by the Nigerian Red Cross Society. So, it's a collaboration between the two Red Cross family members, the Nigerian Red Cross Society and the International Committee of the Red Cross. So, the Nigerian Red Cross has an office in every state, and most of the LGS, local government authorities, also have what we call divisions, where people can go and register their complaints. So, of course, since we do it in collaboration, the Nigerian Red Cross will also link up with the ICRC. But if there is an ICRC office in Maiduguri, for example, in Mongunu, for example, in Yola, in Abuja, in Jaws, in Kano, in Potakot, you should be able to get to this office and put your complaints on the table. Ali, that will be thank you for the work that you do. And of course, we look forward to speaking with you again. Thanks for joining us. Thank you very much for inviting me and have a good evening. Absolutely. Hello, hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.