A/HRC/10/37 page 6 available to owners wishing to challenge demolition and to obtain compensation, if appropriate.17 Concerns continue to be received from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus regarding the trend towards increased construction on the Turkish Cypriot side, as reported last year.18 The situation in Varosha remains unchanged. 14. Concerning Turkish Cypriot property south of the buffer zone, the applicable law continues to place constraints on the return or compensation of the property of any Turkish Cypriots whose “usual residence” is outside the Republic of Cyprus.19 15. The Committee on Missing Persons (CMP) has continued to work on its project on the exhumation, identification and return of remains of missing persons. As of November 2008, the remains of 455 individuals had been exhumed from sites on both sides of the buffer zone by the Committee’s bicommunal teams of scientists. The remains of more than 292 missing persons have undergone examination at the Committee’s bicommunal anthropological laboratory in the United Nations Protected Area in Nicosia. Following DNA genetic analysis, the remains of 105 individuals have been returned to their respective families. In October 2008, following a training period which lasted more than two years, full operational responsibility for running the Committee’s anthropological laboratory was handed over to a bicommunal team of Cypriot scientists. This was the culmination of the capacity-building and local ownership dimension of the Committee’s project.20 16. The Committee will resume further investigations into the fate of the missing persons as soon as it is in a position to do so. The Secretary-General has noted his gratitude that the CMP continues its humanitarian work unhindered and in a depoliticized manner, and urged all parties concerned to take every possible action in order to speed up the exhumation process.21 17. In relation to the Cyprus v. Turkey case, the Committee of Ministers reiterated its evident interest for the work of the CMP, reaffirmed the need for the Turkish authorities to take additional measures to ensure that the effective investigations required by the judgement are carried out, and urged them to provide without further delay information on the concrete means envisaged to achieve this result.22 In the case of Varnava and others v. Turkey of 10 January 2008, the Court recalled its previous finding that, whatever its humanitarian usefulness, the CMP did not provide procedures sufficient to meet the standard of an effective investigation into the fate of nine of the applicants who disappeared in life-threatening 17 See footnote 14 above. 18 A/HRC/7/46, para. 12. 19 Law including interim provisions with regard to the administration of Turkish Cypriot properties in the Republic and other related issues. 20 S/2008/744, paras. 39 and 40. 21 S/2008/353, para. 37 and S/2008/744, para. 41. 22 See footnote 13 above.