In 2024, 141 people reported missing in Colombia were found alive

A total of 141 people who were reported missing were found alive this year in Colombia, which represents a “historical event”, reported the Search Unit for Missing Persons (UBPD).

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In the country, The UBPD has a universe of 124,734 people reported missing before December 1, 2016, and the majority of cases are of those not located or dead. However, since its creation, the UBPD has managed to locate 160 people who were reported missing and who are alive. This year, the UBPD has also increased the number of people reported missing by 11%, due to the increase in search requests – in 2024 it received 5,282 -, to updating the sources of information that feed the universe and to cleaning the databases.

Throughout 2024, the entity, created by the peace agreement with the FARC, has carried out 2,748 surveys in which it recovered 941 bodies and made 131 dignified deliveries to their families. “The Search Unit for Persons Reported as Missing can present to the country a very positive balance of the results achieved during 2024, a product of the committed work of many servants who have given their lives to the search,” highlighted the director of the UBPD, Luz Janeth Forero.

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Among the people search milestones, Forero highlighted that for the first time after decades the first bone structures have been recovered. that could correspond to people missing in the context of the armed conflict, in La Escombrera of Comuna 13 of Medellín. In La Comuna 13, a popular sector that was the scene of violent military operations and was controlled for years by the guerrillas and paramilitaries, the JEP estimates that There were at least 502 people missing between 1981 and 2016, by illegal armed groups, as well as by public forces.

The families of the disappeared believe that in La Escombrera, the largest open-air rubble dump in the city, the bodies of young people and people missing could be found during Operation Orion, a military offensive between October 16 and 17, 2002 where The Army, under the pretext of removing the guerrillas from the popular neighborhood, entered by force and with the connivance of the paramilitaries, who gained control of the Commune. According to the Libertad Legal Corporation, which defends relatives of the victims, there were at least 92 missing, in addition to 71 people murdered by the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) and 17 murders by military forces.

“By 2025, our biggest challenge will be identifying the bodies we have and will continue to recover,” highlighted the director of the UBPD.

EFE