On May 28, the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project tweeted: “PBI accompanies on the week of the disappeared detainee the Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation in Bogota. They ask the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) the opening of a macro case on forced disappearances. According to Defenders of Liberty, human rights organizations report up to 346 missing persons within the framework of the national strike.”

El Espectador has also reported: “According to the Unit for the Search for Disappeared, the armed conflict left around 120,000 people missing” during the armed conflict.

The UN call for a macro process

Last month, W Radio reported: “After meeting last April on the policies adopted by Colombia to clarify and stop forced disappearance in the country, the United Nations Committee against Disappearance delivered its observations to the Colombian state.”

The article continues: “Due to the high number of registered cases and the diversity of sources on this phenomenon, the Committee urged that the National Registry of the Disappeared be purged and the figures unified only in that Registry.”

“In addition, [the United Nations Committee] recommended that the JEP open a macro case on forced disappearance in the country.”

The UN Committee is quoted in that article stating: “Guarantee that cases of forced disappearance, without exception, are investigated ex officio, quickly, exhaustively, impartially, independently and with a differential approach, and that the JEP, within its powers, prioritizes the opening of a macro process.”

The Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation (FNEB)

PBI-Colombia has previously explained: “The Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation for Human Rights is an organization of relatives of the victims of forced disappearance from five regions around the country and an interdisciplinary group of lawyers, social workers and experts in social archives and communication, who accompany people who have suffered the disappearance of one or several loved ones.”

“A specific focus of the Foundation are cases of enforced disappearances of girls and women in the armed conflict and as a result of socio-political violence in the country, in which signs of gender violence have been identified.”

PBI-Colombia adds: “FNEB wants to draw attention to the differential impacts that enforced disappearances have left on the lives, bodies and rights of female victims and of the women who seek missing relatives. In its work with victims of enforced disappearance, the organization prioritizes meeting the specific needs of women.”

Yanette Bautista has been fighting against forced disappearances in Colombia since the disappearance of her 32-year-old sister Nydia Erika on August 30, 1987. Members of the Battalion of Intelligence and Counterintelligence of the Colombian National Army have been named as responsible for the disappearance of Nydia Erika.

Yanette established the Foundation in 1999 while in exile from Colombia.

PBI-Colombia began accompanying the Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation occasionally in 2007 and then in full since 2016.

The poster for the event that PBI-Colombia accompanied today.

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