A/HRC/16/70 than 3,000 persons missing from the Kosovo conflict; at the end of 2009, the total number of missing persons stood at 1,869. 38. The above-mentioned mechanisms should benefit from all relevant information, and the cooperation of their constitutive members should be ensured in this regard. Moreover, they should explore the possibility of access to archives of the national, regional and international bodies that have collected relevant information (such as international tribunals, regional organizations, international and national military contingents). In 2005, ICRC, as chair of the Working Group on Missing Persons, negotiated access to the archives of the international organizations that had worked and/or were still working in Kosovo, particularly those that might possess documentation related to gravesite locations and exhumations carried out in Kosovo immediately after the conflict. Formal requests have also been forwarded to the Governments of countries whose military contingents operated in Kosovo within the Kosovo Force. All retrieved information is being carefully processed and analysed in full respect of its working modalities based on confidentiality, and in close cooperation with the relevant national entities, in the hope that it might lead to the identification of more human remains and potential gravesites. 39. An independent and impartial national institution could play a crucial role in clarifying the fate of missing persons. States should ensure the establishment and day-today functioning of such an institution (commission or committee for missing persons) through adequate structures, such as working groups or other appropriate mechanisms. The commission (or committee) for missing persons should have a clear humanitarian mandate established by law, focusing on the tracing of persons that are unaccountable for as a result of an armed conflict, and the resources and powers necessary to fulfil that mandate. It should, inter alia, (a) receive tracing requests and, on the basis of them, request, collect, check and provide to the applicant and State authorities available information and facts on persons reported missing, as well as any information on the whereabouts and fate of such persons in accordance with the national legislation and with standards pertaining to the protection and management of personal data; (b) be responsible for the operation of a registry of data, and adopt necessary regulations to that end; (c) take appropriate measures to ensure the right of persons deprived of liberty to inform their relatives of their condition, whereabouts and circumstances of their detention/imprisonment; (d) take measures to ensure the enjoyment of rights by the relatives of missing persons; and (e) perform any other tasks required for the performance of its duties. The said body should provide mechanisms such as telephone hotlines and web pages for relatives and witnesses to register missing persons and trace potential burial sites. 40. In the light of the information available, including the replies given by States to the questionnaire, such bodies have been established in a number of situations.14 Their mandates, level of activities and resources vary widely. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Missing Persons Institute was established in 2004 on the basis of the Law on Missing Persons. Its purpose is to provide Bosnia and Herzegovina with a sustainable national mechanism to address all aspects relating to the issue of missing persons as a result of the conflict in Bosnia. It also ensures that mass gravesites are protected, catalogued and properly excavated and that relatives of the missing are able to participate in the search process. In Colombia, two mechanisms are in charge of coordinating efforts to provide answers to the families of missing persons on the fate and whereabouts of their relatives, as well as to repair them for their loss: the Commission for the Search of Missing Persons and the National Commission on Reparation and Reconciliation. The law establishing the 14 10 In, inter alia, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Guatemala, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Iraq, Kosovo, Peru and Serbia.