ICRC says rumors about captives are not only false, but also very painful for families of missing persons

Head of the ICRC Delegation to Armenia Mrs.  Caroline Douilliez says rumors about captives are not only false but also extremely painful for the families of the missing persons. Mrs. Douilliez made such statement in an interview with ArmInfo and news.am, when commenting on the latest statement by Ali Hassanov, Chairman of Azerbaijan's State Committee for Refugees and IDPs, saying that there are many "Armenian hostages in Azerbaijan" and Baku offers to exchange them with the Azerbaijani raiders Shahbaz Guliyev and Dilham Askerov. 

The ICRC representative says they are currently visiting three persons - one in Baku (Arsen Baghdasaryan, NKR Defense Army private who crossed into Azerbaijan in December 2014 and was sentenced for 15 years - editor's note) and two in Nagorny Karabakh (raiders Shahbaz Guliyev and Dilham Askerov who are imprisoned in NKR - editor's note).

Mrs. Douilliez says the ICRC regularly hears such statements on existence of captives from both the sides and starts to verify the information, and every time it turns out that the statements were groundless. She believes that such false rumors are very painful for the families of the missing persons. Meantime, Mrs. Douilliez says, the Committee has been working with such families for long years rendering them psychological and social assistance.  These people need feasible information on the fate of their relatives.  
The head of the ICRC Delegation is sure that many of the missing persons are probably no longer alive.  Nevertheless, she said, the Committee Office in Baku will verify the feasibility of the statement made by the Azerbaijani official last week.  

She urges the sides to use the terms 'hostage,' 'POW' or 'captive' the right way not to mislead people.  As for the establishment of the contacts between the prisoners or POWs with their families, Mrs.  Douilliez said the task number one for the ICRC is to ensure the contacts of a person and his family through either messages and letters or phone calls.  Everything depends on the country the prisoner, POW, or captive is held in. 
In response to the question about the possible cooperation in finding the gravesites, exhumation and identification of the remains, the ICRC representative says the process moved from the dead point after the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan expressed readiness to exchange information on the given issues through the ICRC. 
She hopes the process will be intensified this year, as the sides comprehend that it is a humanitarian problem and do not politicize it.  At present, she says, the Committee is collecting relevant data.  It is will be long process and, unfortunately, not all the families will receives answers to their questions, but the sides have embarked on the issue, Mrs. Douilliez says.
In her words, the sides and the Committee are trying to find people who were present at burial of any of the missing persons and can point at the right gravesite. Simultaneously, she says, DNA-data of the relatives of the missing persons are being collected for identification of remains after exhumation. More than 100 DNA samples have been taken already and the process continues, Mrs. Douilliez says.

Earlier on February 8, Ali Hasanov, Chairman of the State Committee for Work with Refugees and IDPs, stated that there is a large number of Armenian prisoners in Azerbaijan. "I have recently attended an international event in Geneva, where I met with the ICRC president solely for the issue of our hostages. I discussed the issue with him and he promised to step up efforts for it. The Armenians are not going to free them easily as Dilgam and Shahbaz as well as deceased Hasan inflicted such a blow on the Armenians, a blow that has not cured yet. That's why the Armenians insist on not returning them. We offer them in exchange all the Armenian hostages that we have, but they refuse to exchange.  

All international organizations have issued a statement calling Armenian actions illegal," APA quotes him as saying.  Hasanov said during his meeting with the ICRC president he asked to organize at least an online communication between Dilgam and Shahbaz, and their family members on Skype.