STRASBOURG (Sputnik), Daria Chernyshova — Discussions will be based on a report adopted by the PACE Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Person on June 3, addressing concerns over the growing number of people who have gone missing in the areas of military action in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine, as well as in Crimea.
Missing People in Ukraine
The report notes that since the beginning of the conflict in Donbass in early 2014, more than 1,300 persons have been reported missing, including soldiers, civilians and volunteers.
"The Assembly considers that the issue of missing persons requires a more comprehensive approach at governmental level and should include the co-ordination of the work of various volunteer and human rights organizations with regard to tracing and collecting information on missing persons," UK lawmaker Jim Sheridan said in the report.
European Migration Challenge
More than 60,000 asylum seekers from the the Middle East and North Africa attempted to cross the Mediterranean Sea in 2015 in an attempt to reach Europe, according to the UN. Nearly 2,000 have drowned since the beginning of the year trying to flee dire economic conditions and armed conflicts in their home countries.
PACE President Anne Brasseur said Monday she was not proud of the European response to the immigration crisis, pointing to Turkey as an exemplar for solving the crisis.
Turkey was named by the United Nations as the country with the world's largest refugee population. It is currently hosting about two million Syrian refugees.
Addressing PACE on Tuesday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned against anti-refugee and anti-migrant sentiments.
He also stressed that human traffickers should be brought to justice and punished, not immigrants or refugees.
The UN chief called on PACE lawmakers to advocate settling the crisis of migrants and refugees crossing the Mediterranean and to quell anti-migrant rhetoric that some European countries have voiced.
The PACE summer session will conclude on June 26.
