Spain urges the UN Statute of the International Victims of Terrorism

USPA NEWS - Spain boosts Wednesday in the Security Council of the Uited Nations to create an International Statute of Victims of Terrorism, with which they want to give voice to this group in international forums.

In a special session of the Security Council, organized by the United Nations, the US and Spain, it will be heard for the first time the voice of the victims of terrorism. Last year, 32,700 people died worldwide as a result of terrorist attacks, double the number in 2013. However, the victims of terrorism have no voice beyond their own countries or have special consideration as if the refugees hold and victims of armed conflict.

To end this situation, Spain wants to move into the international arena experience with victims of terrorism. More than forty years of activity of the terrorist organization ETA has caused a high number of victims, not only those killed in attacks but also the injured and their families, who have organized themselves in associations whose main objective is to assist the victims. In Spain is leading the Association of Victims of Terrorism, chaired by Maria del Mar Blanco, sister of a Popular Party councilor in the small Basque town of Ermua, who was kidnapped and murdered by ETA in July 1997.

Maria del Mar Blanco will speak on Wednesday before the Security Council of the UN. But it is not only because in New York are also Jana Gallardo, a young woman who suffered jihadist attacks March 11, 2004 in Madrid, and Tomas Fraga, an industrial engineer who was also a victim of jihadism in Egypt. The three will share their experiences and try to make the voice of victims reaches the highest international spheres. However, it is not expected that the Security Council approve any statement or take any initiative, at least immediately, in this session.

This week it have completed four years without ETA attacks in Spain. The terrorist organization has not dissolved yet, but its operational capacity is very limited, experts of the Police and Civil Guard said. However, the victims of their attacks will continue to be lifelong because the dead do not return and many wounds, phisical and mental, will never heal.