– Each year, thousands of people vanish at the hands of state authorities, armed groups, or criminal networks. These are not isolated tragedies: in Bangladesh, Belarus, Guinea, Mexico, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, Syria or Venezuela, enforced disappearances devastate families and communities, corrode justice, and silence dissent. When systematic, they constitute crimes against humanity.
– On the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, FIDH calls on states to end this practice, ratify and implement the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance without delay, and guarantee truth, justice and reparations.
Paris, 30 August 2025. On this International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, FIDH reaffirms that the disappeared are not forgotten and that this practice must be confronted with truth, justice and reparations, everywhere it occurs, and whoever the perpetrators may be.
Enforced disappearance is among the gravest of human rights violations. It strips victims of their rights to life, liberty, justice, and protection from torture or ill-treatment. Crucially, the crime does not end with the arrest or abduction itself; it continues for as long as the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared remain concealed, often for years, sometimes for decades. When carried out as part of a widespread or systematic attack on civilians, enforced disappearance constitutes a crime against humanity.
Disappearances as a tool of repression
Enforced disappearances are often used to silence dissent and spread fear.
Bangladesh. Under Sheikh Hasina, security forces ran a network of secret detention sites. There, political opposition members, student leaders, activists and journalists were held incommunicado, subjected to torture, and, in some cases, killed. Survivors who resurfaced were often coerced into silence or faced fabricated criminal charges to justify their unlawful detention. The current Interim Government’s steps, including accession to the Convention in August 2024 and the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry, mark an important opportunity, but truth and accountability remain urgently needed.
Belarus. Since the late 1990s, opponents of President Lukashenka’s regime have vanished without a trace. Politicians like Viktar Hanchar and journalists like Dzmitry Zavadski disappeared in circumstances pointing to state involvement. The culture of impunity hardened over decades, resurfacing during the 2020 protests, where repression spread to lawyers and activists documenting violations. In 2023, a Swiss court held the first trial relating to enforced disappearances in Belarus under the Lukashenka regime. While his acquittal underscored that the road to justice is sometimes strewn with pitfalls, it did not undermine the determination of the victims to pursue their fight for truth and justice.
Turkey. For nearly three decades, the Saturday Mothers have gathered to demand truth and justice for their disappeared relatives. Their peaceful weekly vigils have become a powerful symbol of memory and resistance. Yet instead of recognising their right to mourn and to know the truth, the authorities have escalated repression. While Turkey’s own Constitutional Court recently confirmed twice their right to assemble, authorities continue to prosecute participants, with baseless accusations. This ongoing criminalisation of memory and activism not only denies justice to the families of the disappeared but also sends a chilling warning to civil society at large.
Disappearances in armed conflict and occupation
Ukraine. In occupied Ukrainian territories, enforced disappearances have become a systematic tool used by Russian forces and affiliated groups to suppress all forms of resistance against the occupation, whether armed, informational, or symbolic resistance. Families describe relatives taken at checkpoints or dragged from homes during night raids, never to be seen again. Ukrainian children have been forcibly transferred, severing cultural and familial ties as part of a deliberate strategy to erase identity. FIDH’s member organisation, the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, has documented systematic patterns confirming these acts are not isolated but a coordinated tool of control.
Syria. For over a decade, tens of thousands of Syrians have been disappeared by the Syrian regime. Enforced disappearances, carried out primarily by intelligence services, were used systematically to instill fear, silence dissent, and maintain absolute control during periods of unrest and armed conflict. Families were left in anguish, met only with silence or extortion. Detention centres such as Sednaya have become infamous as sites of torture, summary executions, and mass graves, embodying the cruelty of a system built on disappearance and denial. On 24 May 2024, a Paris Court delivered a landmark judgment: three senior Syrian officials were sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes, in connection with the disappearance, torture, and killing of Mazzen and Patrick Dabbagh arrested in Damascus in 2013, providing that even the most powerful can be held accountable.
Organised crime and disappearances
Enforced disappearances are no longer limited to authoritarian States.
In Mexico, more than 120,000 people are missing or disappeared as of April 2025, mostly since the “war on drugs” began in 2006. Enforced disappearances are committed across the territory by organised crime groups, with powerful criminal groups abducting, detaining and forcibly disappearing individuals, including rivals, migrants, witnesses, or those who refuse to collaborate. In some areas, in particular at the local level, public officials stand complicit, either through silent acquiescence or active involvement. With impunity rates above 98%, justice remains elusive. In April 2005, for the first time, taking into account two FIDH reports submitted in February the same year, the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances decided to refer Mexico to the UN General Assembly. This unprecedented move reflects the gravity of the crisis in Mexico and the importance of civil society’s persistence in breaking through denial.
The Convention: Turning commitment into protection
The 2006 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance remains the most protective international legal tool to prevent, investigate and punish this crime. Yet, nearly two decades later, only 77 States have ratified it, leaving millions of people unprotected.
FIDH calls on States to:
– Ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance without delay, and ensure its full, effective implementation in law and practice. Ratification is not symbolic, it is a binding promise of justice.
– Investigate and prosecute enforced disappearances wherever they occur, regardless of rank, office, or circumstance.
– Guarantee the right to truth by supporting families in the search of their relatives, and protecting defenders from retaliation.
– Provide reparations to victims and families, recognising not only their pain and loss but their right to dignity, livelihood, and memory. Reparations must include guarantees of non-recurrence.
– Hold perpetrators accountable, nationally or internationally. Enforced disappearance, when widespread or systematic, is a crime against humanity.
No more silence
From Minsk to Istanbul, Kherson to Mexico City, Bangkok to Caracas, Conakry to Dhaka, families and defenders continue their courageous struggle. Their resilience demands an equally determined response from states. The disappeared must not remain invisible. Justice requires truth, accountability and action.
