Bridging the divide from below: civil society, missing persons, and reconciliation in Cyprus

In Cyprus, more than five decades of political division have left the issue of missing persons embedded within competing narratives of victimhood, responsibility, and memory. While the bicommunal Committee on Missing Persons (CMP) has achieved substantial humanitarian and forensic progress, its bounded mandate does not extend to historical accountability or reconciliation. Drawing on seven semi-structured interviews with journalists, activists, civil society leaders, former public officials, and political figures, this article examines how missing-persons work can contribute to reconciliation under unresolved conflict. It identifies three interconnected mechanisms: emotional recognition, relational trust, and narrative contestation. Its central contribution is a reconciliation-ecosystem framework that explains both how these processes can generate reconciliation before political settlement and why their effects often remain socially and politically bounded. The article argues that truth recovery and cross-community cooperation acquire wider significance only when alternative understandings of suffering gain legitimacy beyond the relationships and networks in which they emerge.