The issue of disappearances and murders of First Nation women in Canada has been gaining an increasing amount of media attention. The exact number of missing and murdered aboriginal women is not known. Some media investigations have suggested that over the past 30 years more than 1,200 women have gone missing in Canada. The RCMP states that the violence is often perpetrated by members…

The News on Sunday, a weekly magazine in Pakistan, reported on 2 August that the country’s Human Rights Commission had condemned the killing of a man in the southern province of Sindh who had been arrested by uniformed security forces. The headline of the piece was “Sindh: A new Balochistan?” and the article cited the incident as possible evidence of a wave of enforced disappearances throughout the country. Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest province, though it has a population of just under 10 million. Since 2003, a nationalist movement has sustained a drive for independence, reviving historical claims that enjoy considerable support. The central government has responded in a manner that has generally been described as heavy-handed. Sindh, which borders Balochistan, is Pakistan’s most populous province; its largest city, Karachi, is the commercial capital of the country. The prospect of Sindh following Balochistan in terms of enforced disappearances and extra-judicial…

The 2015 Sarajevo Film Festival (SFF) gave special attention to the issue of missing persons, with several documentary and feature films covering the subject. Four documentaries focused on Srebrenica: “The Sigh of Life, Srebrenica”, “Adil”, “The Mist of Srebrenica” and “The Voices of Srebrenica”. All four films tell stories of survivors of genocide and pose questions about life, war and forgiveness, as well as considering human hardship and the burden of loss.

A documentary film “Remember me”, produced by the Izvor Association from Prijedor, was also shown during the 21st SFF. This film tells the story of two girls who were small children at the time of their fathers’ internment and disappearance.

“15-minute Massacre in Dvor” was shown as part of the “1995 – 2015 Dealing with the Past” program at the festival. The film tells the story of the massacre of nine people with disabilities in Dvor, Croatia, at the…

One of the tragic consequences of Colombia’s internal armed conflict has been the enforced disappearance of many thousands of people. The causes of these disappearances are more diverse than in other transitional societies. In Colombia, enforced disappearances have been perpetrated by a variety of groups, including paramilitary and guerrilla forces and state actors. Furthermore, as the conflict has not yet been brought conclusively to a close, disappearances continue to occur.

The disappeared in Colombia are located in numerous individual and multiple clandestine graves, as NNs (No Name) in ossuaries or cemeteries, or as partial remains recovered from rivers and other bodies of water. A recently found excavation site, La Escombrera (the dump), in Medellin has brought further attention to the issue. It is believed the site contains the remains of 300 victims. Excavation of the remains, which began in late July 2015, is reckoned to be the largest such undertaking…

Events were organized around the world on 30 August to mark the International Day of the Disappeared, a commemoration designed to raise public awareness about the issue of missing persons from armed conflict and human rights abuses.

“Today is an appropriate occasion on which to recall that the issue of missing persons represents a global challenge that requires a global solution,” ICMP Director-General Kathryne Bomberger said in a statement. “As governments around the world struggle to come to terms with missing persons crises, it is essential that the issue is addressed in a way that focuses on strategic and institutional solutions.”

Ms Bomberger stressed that “whether a person is missing from conflict, human rights abuses, disasters or other causes, it is  a complex issue that entails securing the rights of families of the missing  ,” and she added that as the only international organization exclusively dedicated to accounting for the missing,…