Ukra government "sixty thousand civilians missing during war"

In Ukraine, which is at war with Russia, 60,000 civilians have remained unaccounted for since reported missing in the past year and a half, Ukrainian government officials say.

Ukraine's interior ministry director Dmytro Bohadiuk told the country's state news agency Ukraineinform that about 60,000 of the 70,000 cases of disappearance received since May last year were still missing.

It explained that the remaining cases were either confirmed to be alive or identified from the list of dead.

Ukraine's Interior Ministry launched an "integrated missing persons register" in May last year to record and track the number of people missing in special situations such as war and disaster.

The tally of missing people did not include more than 19,500 Ukrainian children forced to move to Russia, Belarus or Russian-occupied territories, the local daily Kyiv Independent said.

Ukraine's Interior Ministry said it will also strengthen cooperation with the U.S. embassy to identify unidentified deaths through DNA testing.