Families honour Marawi siege missing for International Day of the Disappeared

Around 300 families are still searching for their kin who went missing during the 2017 Marawi conflict. 

By Jun Enriquez

ICRC (30 August 2026) - Each year, in commemoration of the International Day of the Disappeared (IDOD) on 30 August, they gather to remember their loved ones, and to urge the authorities to provide clarity on their whereabouts. On 27 August 2026, they offered prayers and flowers for their missing relatives at an event in Paseo de Santiago in Iligan City.

Families whose kin have been missing since the 2017 Marawi conflict marked the International Day of the Disappeared, which falls annually on 30 August, by honouring their loved ones in separate gatherings in Marawi City on 26 August and Iligan City on 27 August 2026.

After the gathering in Paseo de Santiago, the families travelled to the Maqbara cemetery in Marawi City, where unidentified remains of people who died in the 2017 conflict were buried. 

 

In Maqbara, the families also wrote messages of hope and love for their missing relatives.

 

The visit gave them the opportunity to honour and remember those who are missing. For some families, this is the first time that they have visited the cemetery.

The families have been living in uncertainty for many years. They continue to deal with ambiguous loss, where they cannot mourn their missing relatives properly because of the absence of their bodies. Some of the families are struggling to secure their government- mandated benefits such as insurance due to the absence of death certificates and the lack of legal status for missing persons. Others continue to hope that their missing loved ones are alive.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has been advocating for the rights of the families of the missing. It is the authority’s responsibility to search for and identify missing persons, as specified under international humanitarian law (IHL). Under IHL, it is the right of the families to know what has happened to their missing kin. 

 

A separate gathering of the families of the missing occurred in Marawi City on 26 August 2026, where the participants remembered their missing kin and discussed the progress of the new Marawi Family Association advocates for the rights of the families of the Marawi siege missing.

With the 10th anniversary of the Marawi conflict happening in May 2027, the families of the missing are hoping that they will finally have the answers that they have been searching for. (ICRC Press Release; Photos by Amer Hassan Sanggacala/ICRC; Written and Edited by Jun Enriquez, Digital-Mobile Journalist)