34 ANNUAL REPORT 2011 with the help of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Ministry’s own foreign attachés. However, not all unaccompanied children come from countries where it is likely to be possible to initiate a search via available sources. In response to a question from the Immigration Service, the Ministry of For­ eign Affairs thus stated that – with the necessary personal information – it would in some cases be able to obtain information from public registers and might track down family members in this way. However, according to the Min­istry’s information, the option of getting information from public registers could only be used in countries where the Ministry already had a permanent, approved source for handling specific cases involving a need for protection, such as Iran, Pakistan and Turkey. On the other hand, the Ministry declined to carry out actual physical searches for relatives. According to the Ministry, such a task would require house-tohouse enquiries in villages outside the capital area, which it was unable to un­ der­take for both resource and safety reasons in for instance Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. While the Ombudsman was processing the case, the Ministry took other initiatives to be able to fulfil its search obligation in future. In summer 2010, it thus entered into a pilot agreement with the IOM (International Organization for Migration) concerning a search arrangement covering a limited number of cases and geographical areas. The authorities stated that the intention was to make the arrangement general and global – if an evaluation supported it. The authorities also promised the Ombudsman to review pending cases where it might be possible to track down relatives through public registers, with a view to initiating a search. Finally, the Ministry stated that it would discuss any ‘supplementary alternatives’ (in relation to searches for relatives in the child’s native country) with the Immigration Service. Another change of the obligation to initiate searches Although the content of the obligation to initiate searches was changed again in January 2011, the authorities are still in many cases obliged to search for the families of children who arrive in Denmark on their own. It appears from the legislative history behind the latest Amendment Act (Act No. 1543 of 21 December 2010) that in some cases an unaccompanied mi-