Brussels, 19/06/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 18 June, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for further financial support from the EU for the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus. In adopting the report by Ewa Klamt (EPP-ED, Germany) by 620 votes to 4, with 17 abstentions, Parliament gave its backing to the renewal of the funding for the above committee from 2009, and said that it was essential for additional funding of €2 million to be included in the EU's general budget for the 2009 financial year in order to improve the committee's human and material resources. The committee has a list of almost 2,000 missing persons: 502 Turkish Cypriots and 1,493 Greek Cypriots. Several hundred disappeared in 1963-64, during inter-communal fighting, the others in 1974 following the Turkish military intervention. Since then, the committee has set up a project to find, exhume and identify the remains of missing persons to return them to their families. By mid-February 2008, the remains of 379 people had been exhumed from over the whole island. Of this number, 83 bodies have been formally identified and 70 returned to families for burial. (B.C./transl.rt)