In 2008, REFUNITE was established by David and Christopher Mikkelsen, Danish siblings, inspired by their own experience attempting to reunite a young Afghan refugee with his family.

During their search, they realized that current family tracing programs lacked efficient cross-border technology and collaboration, in addition to a lot of paper work.

[citation needed] They worked to develop a global, centralized, and free platform that would allow refugees and other internally displaced persons (IDPs) to search for and reconnect with their missing families and loved ones.

[citation needed] REFUNITE has worked with Ericsson and mobile network operators to provide SMS messaging to its users free of charge.

REFUNITE works with Ericsson[8] Facebook, Safaricom in Kenya, Vodacom DRC in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Telesom in Somaliland, Avea in Turkey, Asiacell in Iraq, and Zain Group in Jordan and South Sudan.