ICRC // Missing Persons

The Lebanese Civil war may have killed over 120,000 people, but it has snatched the life from more families. Since April 13 1975, 17,000 people went missing, with no explanation from the Lebanese government to ease the missing people’s families. While they wait on false hope, their lives are fading away into nothingness. Time does not heal their wounds, nor do they forget what happened. The whole incident is engraved in their memories forever.

The government is urging people to file a death certificate for their missing ones, in order to inherit them but it might not be as easy as it sounds to just announce a long lost person dead without knowing for sure. While ICRC is trying to form a database to connect the missing people who are still alive to their families.

Axeer and ICRC Lebanon have launched a campaigned called “Absence/Presence” where five posters of the missing are hung over the parliamentary election boxes like the official candidates to remind the government of their lagged life; as the government has not yet passed any law to give closure to these people

The video campaign is trying to showcase how a family’s condition will stay in plateau, as they’re waiting in vain without knowledge about what happened to their lost people.

The video shows a family of three waiting on their father to return as time goes by and they keep growing older, still in their places, still in hopes for their father to return. The campaign aims to give the Lebanese government a push into finding out the missing person’s status, for them to move forward with their lives.