UBPD teams have also identified 7,600 sites of mass graves in the country. Henao explained that “a joint effort can be made” to find the disappeared persons in the “parishes or dioceses that have cemeteries under their responsibility or property where unidentified people may be buried.” The UBPD said that “the Church is essential for the search” in remote places, thanks to its institutional presence in different regions of the country through the priests, religious congregations, and pastoral workers who serve these communities on an ongoing basis. The CEC delegate for church-state relations pointed out that with this effort they wish to “respond to a humanitarian need that affects so many families throughout the country and that represents a deep mark on the life, on the psychology of people in their community lives.” “In Colombia, 104,000 families are searching very intensively for their disappeared loved ones during the armed conflict,” Henao explained, speaking from the conference’s headquarters in Bogotá. Monsignor Héctor Fabio Henao Gaviria, the CEC delegate for church-state relations, made the announcement after a meeting held June 27 with the director of the government’s Unit for the Search for Disappeared Persons (UBPD), Luz Janeth Forero Martínez.Īlso present at the meeting were the president of the CEC, Archbishop Luis José Rueda Aparicio the vice president, Archbishop Omar Sánchez the secretary general, Bishop Luis Manuel Alí and the bishop of Soacha, Juan Carlos Barreto. In addition, 27,023 people were kidnapped. In Latin America, someone who “was disappeared” means that the person was kidnapped and very likely killed, whether by organized crime or by left-wing or right-wing forces.Īccording to the Colombian government’s National Center for Historical Memory, between 19 (the year peace negotiations began), the armed conflict in the nation resulted in the deaths of 218,094 people, of which 177,307, or 81%, were civilians and 40,787, or 19%, were combatants. Their remains could be in common graves or buried in cemeteries but without having been identified. The Colombian Bishops’ Conference (CEC) will formally collaborate in the search for disappeared persons as a result of the guerrilla warfare in the country. Politicnico Grancolombiano Departamento de Comunicaciones via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)
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