Missing migrants on the route to the US

ABC News reports on the causes and dangers of migration from Central America to the US, following the progress of the “migrant caravan”. “The journey to the US passes through isolated countryside where Mexico’s Zeta drug cartel is expanding into kidnapping and people trafficking. The caravan offers safety in numbers, though several migrants have disappeared on the way.” https://ab.co/2VSqmGj

Montana proposes legislation to tackle issue of missing children

Authorities in the US state of Montana are considering a bill that would allow any law enforcement officer in the state to file a missing child report as soon as a child is reported missing. The proposed law would also let officers treat cases where a parent is keeping a child from their legal guardian as a missing child case, rather than a civil dispute. https://bit.ly/2RMZyIo

Mass grave discovered in Iraq’s Nineveh Province

Iraqi security forces…

Pakistan: families demand recovery of missing persons

The Nation newspaper in Pakistan reports that the families of Syed Nabeel Akhter and Junaid Iqbal, who have been missing for more than a year, have filed a petition in the Sindh High Court demanding that the authorities immediately present the men in court. The families say the men were abducted by plain-clothes counter-terrorism agents on 15 September 2017. https://bit.ly/2HbT7uv

Sri Lanka to send samples to Florida lab for identification

Officials from Sri Lanka’s Office on Missing Persons will join the chief investigator of the Mannar mass grave, where more than 200 sets of human remains have been excavated, to take samples from the grave to a laboratory in Florida for analysis, the Tamil Guardian reports. https://bit.ly/2RstZ7v

Two Yezidi families rescued in Syria

Ezidi24 reports the rescue of two Yezidi families in Syria, consisting of two women and five children. The news portal says that…

30,000 irregular migration deaths, disappearances

At least 30,510 people died during irregular migration between 2014 and 2018, the International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project reports. More than 19,000 deaths and disappearances were recorded due to drowning, not only in the Mediterranean Sea, but also in the Rio Grande, the Bay of Bengal, and many other overseas routes. Due to the lack of official sources of information on deaths during migration, and the corresponding lack of detail on most of those who die during migration, these figures are best understood as a minimum estimate. https://bit.ly/2M6qX2H

Mexico: Justice for the disappeared

Families of the missing in Mexico hope that the new president, López Obrador, will prioritize the search for the disappeared. The Nation has published an analysis of the country’s missing persons challenge and the options for the incoming administration, quoting Alejandro Encinas, the new sub-secretary of human rights, migration,…

Bangladesh: highest number of extrajudicial killings in 6 years 

The human rights organization, Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), in Bangladesh says the number of extrajudicial killings in the country in 2018 was the highest for six years, with 466 persons reported killed in 2018, in comparison to 176 in 2017. ASK has called on the government to appoint an independent commission to investigate the killings.  https://bit.ly/2RAMmq3   

Mass grave discovered in Nineveh, Iraq 

The Iraqi security forces say they have discovered a mass grave containing 38 bodies in the south of Nineveh, according to Shaafaq News. The bodies belong to 38 women believed to have been executed by Da’esh. (Original article in Arabic) https://bit.ly/2CeyPe9 

Cambodia: excavation of 200 mass graves 

Cambodia’s Culture and Fine Arts Ministry is excavating 200 mass graves from the era of Khmer Rouge rule, from 1975 to 1979, when an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians were killed, the Khmer Times reports. Ministry archaeologists have catalogued the remains of victims at six sites since they began work in 2012. Around 200,000 victims have been identified. https://bit.ly/2RGRF7f  

Mass grave excavated in Libya 

The Red Crescent in Derna City in Libya has excavated a mass grave containing the bodies of 50 Da’esh fighters killed in fighting, Shaafaq News reports. The bodies were buried between 2014 and…

Post-conflict justice in the Western Balkans

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network has published a report highlighting regional challenges in dealing with war crimes prosecutions, missing persons issues and victims’ participation in judicial processes. The report recommends steps that can be taken by countries in the Western Balkans in the process of dealing with the past, and urges the European Union to include transitional justice policies as EU benchmarks in the integration process. https://bit.ly/2FfYA1j

EU urged to accept nearly 50 stranded migrants

France 24 reports on the predicament of around 50 migrants who have been stranded on two NGO ships off the coast of Malta. Humanitarian groups have made a direct appeal to the EU to allow them to dock, adding that the physical and psychological health of the migrants is at serious risk. https://bit.ly/2shm11V

Cyprus prepares law on missing persons compensation

The authorities in Cyprus are preparing draft legislation on compensation…

Sri Lanka’s Office on Missing Persons

The Daily News from Sri Lanka has published an article on the work of the Office on Missing Persons (OMP), noting that “there is no one accepted statistic for the total number of the missing and disappeared” and highlight the OMP’s “critical role” in compiling records “and developing a centralized list for its work and the interventions of other agencies and institutions”. https://bit.ly/2M1zLHe

Germany investigates disappeared citizens in Egypt

Two German nationals with dual citizenship have disappeared in Egypt, Deutsche Welle reports. “There are two separate cases of German citizens who have been reported missing,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on 7 January. One of the men, an 18-year-old from the central city of Giessen, is believed to have disappeared before he was scheduled to take a flight from Luxor to Cairo. The other, a 23-year-old from Göttingen, was detained at Cairo airport while attempting…

Arbitrary detention in China 

The Guardian has published an article by Michael Caster, author of “The People’s Republic of the Disappeared”, arguing that “over the years China has institutionalized arbitrary and secret detention affecting innumerable Chinese citizens, and with little international consequence.” The author says “China feels emboldened to place literally anyone under arbitrary and secret detention, regardless of citizenship.” https://bit.ly/2QrLcbT 

Refugees stranded on Algeria-Nigeria border 

UNHCR has expressed concern over the safety of vulnerable individuals from Syria, Yemen and Palestine who are reportedly stranded at Algeria’s southern border with Niger. It says the group of 120 were detained at the Tamanrasset Centre in southern Algeria before being taken to an area near the Guezzam border post on 26 December. UNHCR says some of the individuals in the group are “registered refugees who have fled conflict and persecution or claim to have attempted to seek international protection in Algeria.” https://bit.ly/2C8QCDx 

Mass grave discovered in Iraq’s northern…