Missing persons in Nepal

Police in Nepal receive an average of 16 missing persons reports every day, according to the Kathmandu Post. The paper says most cases involve women or children and most are never solved. Since 2014, Nepal has recorded 38,349 cases, with only 9,160 being solved, though the paper notes that in many cases, police are not informed when a missing person reappears, which means there may be a higher number of solutions. https://bit.ly/2XUtHpU

Mexico: mothers call for action on missing migrants

Mothers of missing migrants from Central America will meet today with senior government officials in Mexico, including Under-Secretary for Human Rights Alejandro Encinas, Aristegui Noticias reports. One of the mothers pointed out that migrants “go missing in zones which are violent and controlled by organized crime, making it difficult to access” (original article in Spanish). https://bit.ly/37H4fsi

Turkey: missing person appears in police custody

AFP reports that Mustafa…

Washington acts to address issue of missing Native American women

USA Today reports that US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at addressing the issue of missing and murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives. A task force will be established, which the Administration says will “engage with tribal communities on the scope of the issue; develop protocols to apply to new and unsolved cases; establish a multi-disciplinary, multi-jurisdictional team to review cold cases; establish greater clarity of roles, authorities and jurisdictions involved in these cases.” https://bit.ly/2OQrK9Q

Mediterranean: missing migrants

The Guardian reports that four people have died and 16 are missing after a boat carrying 78 migrants got into difficulties while travelling from Morocco to Spain. A spokeswoman for the Salvamento Marítimo said rescuers had saved 62 people from the water 36 miles north-east of the Spanish north African enclave of Melilla. The International Organization for Migration says 22,970 people have…

Accounting for the missing in Ukraine

Balkan Insight carries an in-depth story on the effort to account for those who have gone missing as a result of the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Among other things, it notes that an August 2018 law on missing persons, which envisages the creation of a database to coordinate the use of information and provides for support for families of the missing, has not yet been implemented. https://bit.ly/2DnwxtS

Enforced disappearances in Egypt

A new report published by Amnesty International says the authorities in Egypt are using counter-terror legislation to prosecute opponents of the regime. Ot says this has led to “the arbitrary detention of thousands” and resulted in serious violations carried out by the police, including enforced disappearances. https://bit.ly/2OM7mXu

Myanmar: Court martial related to mass graves

Soldiers are being tried by a military court in Myanmar in relation to events connected with at least five mass graves…

Syria: report highlights enforced disappearance of women

The Syrian Network for Human Rights has issued a report on enforced disappearances of women. It says females have been “directly and deliberately targeted by all parties” in the Syrian conflict, and at least 10,363 females have been detained or forcibly disappeared since March 2011, of whom 8,412 have been victims of Regime forces. https://bit.ly/2XNc8YE

Mexico: more than 70,000 missing migrants

More than 70,000 migrants have been reported as disappeared over the past 15 years on the route through Mexico to the United States, according to the Zócalo news portal, quoting the coordinator of the Mesoamerican Migrants Movement as saying that the issue of missing migrants in Mexico is comparable to the situation in the Mediterranean (original article in Spanish). https://bit.ly/2OJ3fLC

Sri Lanka: “not a single case of enforced disappearances prosecuted”

Jacobin magazine reports on a thousand days of protests by Tamil mothers…

Malaysia: missing activist’s family wait for three years

The Star Online from Malaysia reports on efforts by Norhayati Ariffin to establish the fate of her husband, Amri Che Mat, who disappeared three years ago. In April, the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) concluded that law enforcement officials were behind the enforced disappearances of Amri and Pastor Raymond Koh. Last week, Norhayati began civil proceedings against the authorities over their conduct during investigations into her husband’s disappearance. http://bit.ly/35vJTjW

Egypt: journalists detained

Egyptian security forces have raided the office of the Mada Masr newspaper and arrested members of staff, a day after one of the paper’s editors, Shady Zalat, was taken from his Cairo home and held in an unknown location, the Independent reports. Egyptian rights activists say they have no contact with the detained journalists. http://bit.ly/33eTaev

Amnesty raises issue of disappearances in western China

Amnesty International has called on China to respond…

Argentina: new light on 1976-83 disappearances

The Nation newspaper from the United States reports on the release of 47,000 pages of classified US documents that shed light on the “infrastructure of repression” in Argentina from 1976 to 1983, Argentina’s role in Operation Condor and “most important, the fate of hundreds of desaparecidos who were kidnapped, tortured, and murdered”.

Egypt: “systematic” enforced disappearances

Amnesty International reports that authorities in Egypt are “systematically using arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances to silence any dissent and create an atmosphere of fear”. It says the Shehab Center for Human Rights recently reported more than 6,421 cases of enforced disappearance in Egypt during the period from 2013 to 2018. https://bit.ly/33b3pjW

Mexico: exhumations at mass grave in Coahuila

Noticieros Televisa from Mexico reports on the exhumation of 47 sets of human remains being carried out by a team of 45 forensic experts at a mass grave in Saltillo in the…