A/HRC/34/15 the remaining mines within the buffer zone, and urged them to extend demining operations outside the buffer zone. 16. Following up on demining work carried out in the previous period under review, UNFICYP started the clearance of five dangerous areas in the north identified during the survey of the 28 minefield locations released by Mr. Anastasiades to Mr. Akıncı in May 2015 as part of leader-to-leader confidence-building measures. With funding included in the UNFIYCP budget for 2016/17, technical expertise from the United Nations Mine Action Service was embedded in the mission to help to establish the Mine Action Coordination Cell, while clearance work was contracted to a civilian demining organization (S/2016/598, para. 10). During the period under review, three of the five tasks and two additional ad hoc support tasks were completed. Work on the two remaining tasks was expected to begin in 2017. 17. With regard to the minefield north of the buffer zone in Mammari, which caused a mine-wash in 2015 as a result of heavy rains, no progress was registered on the clearance of the minefield, despite assurances by the Turkish Cypriot security forces. Nor has progress been made in clearing the four known remaining minefields in the buffer zone, of which three belong to the National Guard and one to the Turkish forces. While the Turkish Cypriot side indicated that it would accept the clearance of all four areas as a package, the Greek Cypriot side maintained the position that its three minefields were required to counter a perceived threat. Efforts continued at all levels to advance a more comprehensive approach to demining both inside and outside the buffer zone (ibid., para. 11). 18. As a result of the intercommunal fighting of 1963 and 1964, and of the events of July 1974 and afterwards, a total of 1,508 Greek Cypriots and 493 Turkish Cypriots have been officially reported as missing by both communities to the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus. During the period under review, the Committee continued its bicommunal project on the exhumation, identification and return of the remains of missing persons. As at 30 November 2016, the remains of 1,192 individuals had been exhumed on both sides of the buffer zone by the Committee’s bicommunal teams of archaeologists; of these, the remains of 737 missing individuals had been identified and returned to their respective families, including 112 in 2016.5 Members signed an agreement to initiate research into archives of security forces and international organizations present in Cyprus in 1963 and 64, and in 1974, with the aim of locating information on additional burial sites of missing persons. 19. In its resolution 2263 (2016), the Security Council welcomed all efforts to accommodate the exhumation requirements of the Committee on Missing Persons, and the joint appeal for information made by the two leaders on 28 May 2015. Given the need to intensify the Committee’s work, the Council called upon all parties to provide more expeditious, full access to all areas. 20. At the conclusion to its visit to Turkey, conducted from 14 to 18 March 2016, the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances welcomed the information that the excavation teams of the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus would have access to all 30 currently known suspected burial sites in military areas in the north of Cyprus. Access would be given over a three-year period, starting in January 2016, with 10 sites to be excavated each year (A/HRC/33/51/Add.1, para. 28). 5 6 This figure does not include 119 individuals who were identified by the Committee but are not on the official list of missing persons; see Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus, Figures and Statistics of Missing Persons up to 30 November 2016, available at www.cmpcyprus.org/sites/default/files/facts_and_figures_30-11-2016.pdf.