The EU’s Director-General for Structural Reform Support Mario Nava on Tuesday met the three members of the Committee on Missing Persons (CMP) at its anthropological laboratory.

Nava, who was leading a European Commission delegation, held discussions with the CMP members and reaffirmed the EU Aid Programme’s long-term financial support to its bicommunal project “which is helping Cypriot families to heal deep wounds from the past.”

“The EU’s contribution made it possible to first launch and now sustain CMP’s operations,” the CMP said. Since 2006, the EU has contributed €30.7 million to the CMP and remains its largest and most regular donor. “In 2021 alone, the EU committed €2.6m,” it added.

“This level of generous support has led so far to the exhumation, identification and return of 1,006 of the 2,002 missing persons in Cyprus to their families for dignified burials.”

The CMP Members expressed their gratitude to Nava for the EU’s ongoing support and informed him that the Committee is presently intensifying its efforts to locate new burial sites across the island.