UN says disappearances continue daily in Colombia, state unable to respond

Bogota, Dec 5 (EFE).- Enforced disappearances «are not a crime of the past» in Colombia and «the existing material and human resources (of the State) are not sufficient to meet the demand,» the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances said Thursday at a press conference at the end of a visit to the country.

«Enforced disappearances are not a crime of the past. During these two weeks, the people we interviewed conveyed the image of a society overwhelmed by the phenomenon of disappearances, which continue to occur daily throughout the national territory,» said Juan Pablo Albán, one of the committee’s experts, during a press conference in which he read from a preliminary findings document published on Thursday, that will be followed by a full report in April 2025.

Lack of clear figures

According to the findings, disappearances continue to occur in a variety of circumstances, including forced recruitment by illegal armed groups, human trafficking – especially for sexual exploitation -, falsification of identity and appropriation of children, migration, social protests, and social leaders, especially in relation to land conflicts.

For the Committee, «it is of particular concern that there is no reliable global picture of the dimension of enforced disappearances; the figures reported to the delegation range from 98,000 to 200,000 missing persons in Colombia.»

The Committee also noted a significant underreporting of these crimes and other systemic deficiencies, such as the lack of inter-institutional coordination, the fragmentation of the legal framework, and the «absence of institutions in certain parts of the territory, especially in areas under the domination of illegal armed groups and organized crime.»

In addition, the Committee noted that the impunity rate could be as high as 98% and that some institutional practices contribute to invisibilization and impunity, such as cases that are closed without being resolved and cases that are reclassified as homicides despite the absence of a body.

Furthermore, according to the Committee, «the measures adopted to date have not addressed the root causes of enforced disappearances» and, in this sense, «Colombia lacks a comprehensive public policy to prevent enforced disappearances».

20,000 bodies in a hangar

«The delegation is particularly concerned about the situation of the institutions in charge of identifying the bodies and remains found. The existing material and human resources (of the State) are not sufficient to meet the demand,» the document adds, saying that there are thousands of unidentified bodies and that it has even received information about «some 20,000 unidentified bodies in a hangar at the Bogotá airport.»

Minutes after the press conference, the National Institute of Legal Medicine responded that it was «not aware of the existence of such a hangar and has not received any requests from any agency for the study and analysis of such cases.»

This was the Committee’s third visit to Colombia to follow up on the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, during which it held more than 50 meetings and visited six cities.EFE

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