An organization formed by the ICRC to collect all the information it can obtain through official or private channels respecting prisoners of war and protected civilian persons, particularly those subject to internment, and to transmit it to their country of origin or of residence or to the Power on which they depend, except where such transmission might be detrimental to the persons whom the information concerns or to their relatives.  See Missing persons;

 OUTLINE

Chapter 7, Provisions on the Dead and Missing

Chapter 15, e) Restoring family links

Chapter 15, e) tracing service

Chapter 15, c) the Central Tracing Agency

 LEGALE SOURCE

GCI, 16/2 (see ICRC updated Commentary)

GCIII, 123

GCIV, 140

PI, 33/3

 DOCUMENT

ICRC, Tracing Service

 CASES

Iran/Iraq, 70,000 Prisoners of War Repatriated

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Release of Prisoners of War and Tracing of Missing Persons After the End of Hostilities

UN, Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances: Report on Mission to Serbia, including Kosovo

 BIBLIOGRAPHIC RESOURCES

DJUROVIC Gradimir, The central tracing agency of the International Committee of the Red Cross: Activities of the ICRC for the alleviation of the mental suffering of war victims, Geneva, ICRC, 1986, 259 pp.   SASSÒLI Marco, “The National Information Bureau in Aid of the Victims of Armed Conflicts”, in IRRC, No. 256, January 1987, pp. 6-24   SCHREYER Thierry, “L’action de l’Agence centrale de recherches du CICR dans les Balkans durant la crise des réfugiés kosovars”, in IRRC, No. 837, March 2000, pp. 49-65.