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News > Latin America

Red Cross: Almost 80,000 Disappeared in Colombia

  • The relatives of victims of forced disappearances in Colombia have demanded to know what happened to their loved ones.

    The relatives of victims of forced disappearances in Colombia have demanded to know what happened to their loved ones. | Photo: AFP

Published 10 March 2016
Opinion

Colombia records more disappearances related to the internal conflict than most of other contemporary conflict zones in the world, said the report.

Around 80,000 people have disappeared in Colombia as of January 2016, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced Thursday in its annual report.

The report did not detail how many people disappeared due to the violent conflict, but estimated there were more than 45,000 people, according to the country's Unique Victims Register.

The figure of conflict-related disappearances exceeds the disappearance records of all other countries in the continent, and in most of other contemporary conflict zones in the world, said the report.

The report, titled “Let's Not Forget Them,” collected the testimonies of over 200 relatives of disappeared people from 2013./p>

In over three-quarters of the cases, the emotional pain including trauma and guilt was the main effect of the disappearances.

Almost 40 percent asked for more information about their disappeared relative, while 27 percent demanded some kind of material compensation for the loss, and 22 percent wanted to recover the remains in order to complete the funeral ceremony.

Overall, the relatives of the disappeared had “a lot of hope” that a peace deal between the government and the rebels – currently being negotiated in Havana – could finally bring a sense of closure to the disappearances, said ICRC coordinator Deborah Schibler.

The charity urged the government and the rebels to “accelerate the implementation of the deal” in order to alleviate the grief of the disappeared people's relatives

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