Every year on August 30th, the world observes the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. This day highlights the grave injustices faced by countless individuals and their families around the world and calls for action to prevent such atrocities in the future. Established by the UN General Assembly in 2010, the day aims to draw attention to the fate of individuals who have been forcibly disappeared, often by state officials or with state complicity.
Keep reading to learn about actions you can take today to directly help disappeared individuals, their families, and communities.
What are Enforced Disappearances?
Enforced disappearances occur when individuals are secretly abducted or imprisoned by state officials or others acting with state authorization or support. These individuals are often held in secret, without any legal process, and their fate and whereabouts remain unknown, placing them outside the protection of the law. This practice violates many human rights that are enshrined in international law, including the right to liberty and security of person, the right to a fair trial, and the right to family life.
The Global Impact
Enforced disappearances occur all over the world, affecting individuals of every age and profession. From political activists and human rights defenders to journalists and ordinary people, the victims of enforced disappearances often share one thing in common: they have become targets because they dared to speak out or stand up against injustice.
The Enforced Disappearance Convention
The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance was adopted by the United Nations in 2006. The convention aims to prevent enforced disappearances, uncover the truth about what happened to victims, and bring those responsible to justice. While this convention is a significant step forward, much work remains to ensure its full implementation and to hold perpetrators accountable.
What Can We Do?
- Take Online Action: Participate in the online actions for the featured cases below.
- Raise Awareness: Enforced disappearances often go unreported and unpunished. Share information about enforced disappearances on social media, using hashtags like #EndEnforcedDisappearances and #IDVED (International Day of Visibility of Enforced Disappearances). Educate your friends and family about the issue.
- Support Organizations: Donate to or volunteer with organizations that work to uncover the truth and seek justice for victims of enforced disappearances, such as Amnesty International and other human rights groups.
Cases
On this day, we honor the incredible resilience and strength of the families of the disappeared, who often endure years of anguish and uncertainty, tirelessly seeking information and fighting for justice. Help disappeared individuals by reading about their cases below and taking the suggested actions.
Syria: Rania Al-Abbasi and Her Six Children
More than 100,000 people have been subjected to enforced disappearance in Syria since 2011.
On March 9, 2013, members of the Military Intelligence in Syria arrived at the home of dentist Rania al-Abbasi, her husband Abdulrahman Yasin, and their six children: Dima, Entisar, Najah, Alaa, Ahmed, and Layan. Military Intelligence arrested Abdulrahman. The following day, the security forces returned and looted money, jewelry, the family cars, and documents from their property and Rania’s clinic. On the third day, they came back again and arrested Rania, her six children, and her secretary.
More than a decade later, no one knows why the family was arrested or where they are. Family members believe Rania and her husband may have been targeted because they provided humanitarian assistance to those in need. The Syrian authorities have not given any information to their family or to international bodies like the UN.
A close relative describes how the family’s enforced disappearance has affected her: “I cannot sleep at night. My thoughts do not leave me: is she okay or not? Are the children hungry? Are they calm? Or are they screaming and crying? I have these thoughts the whole night.”
- Watch a video about Rania: Transnational Activism and Individuals at Risk – Rania Alabbasi
- Take action: Send a message to Syrian leadership to ensure the release of Rania and her family.
Sri Lanka: Prageeth Eknaligoda
Prageeth Eknaligoda is a Sri Lankan journalist, cartoonist, and political analyst who has been missing since he left work on the evening of January 24, 2010, just days before a presidential election in Sri Lanka. Shortly before his “disappearance,” Prageeth had completed a comparative analysis of the two main presidential candidates, coming out in favor of the opposition.
In the days leading up to his disappearance, he told a close friend that he believed he was being followed. Police investigations have not clarified Prageeth’s status or whereabouts. Sri Lanka has one of the world’s highest number of disappearances, with between 60,000 and 100,000 people vanishing since the late 1980s. Prageeth’s case is emblematic of the tens of thousands of enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka.
- Watch a video about Prageeth: Where Is Prageeth? Amnesty International
- Take action: Send a message to the Sri Lankan president calling for the government to investigate effectively his disappearance and hold accountable those responsible.
China: An entire family has vanished from Xinjiang
A man’s entire family was forcibly disappeared in China. Twin sons Imamhesen and Imamhusen Memetrasul were only 11 years old the last time their father spoke with them in August 2016, when he was living and working away from his family in Kyrgyzstan. “They called me saying, ‘Dad, you should come, otherwise they will detain us’.” The next month, the police took his wife, Nurmangul Ebey, into custody. He only learned of the detention through friends who believe she is being held in a prison in Kucha, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang). The father has no idea where his children are and says: “I want [my wife] to be alive. I want to see her again. I want to live with her again. I just want my family with me.”
The family, which is Muslim and of Kyrgyz and Uzbek ethnicity, is from Kargilik, a city in Xinjiang, a region where an enormous number of predominantly Muslim people—perhaps 1 million or more—have been arbitrarily detained in internment camps since 2017.
Take Action: Call on President Xi Jinping to reveal the whereabouts of two boys who disappeared and release their mother.
Amnesty International has evidence of crimes against humanity committed by Chinese authorities in Xinjiang. While the circumstances of some detainees are known by their families, in many cases their relatives have been unable to obtain any information about them. The government has devoted tremendous resources to covering up its actions, denying people and journalists access to the situation.
Mexico: 43 Ayotzinapa Students
On September 26, 2014, 43 students at the Ayotzinapa Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teacher Training College were forcibly disappeared in Iguala, state of Guerrero, Mexico. The students were preparing to take part in an anniversary demonstration in Mexico City to commemorate the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre of students. Ten years later, 42 of these students are still missing.
Unlike so many enforced disappearance cases, the Ayotzinapa case has received international support and visibility. The current Mexican government-initiated investigations and tried to redirect the investigations. Results of the investigations showed the possible omission or participation of the Armed Forces in the disappearance of the 43 students.
However, the Mexican government has failed to cooperate with family members of the disappeared in turning over requested documents that are known to exist.
Despite ongoing investigations and international pressure, the case remains unsolved after nearly a decade. The ten-year anniversary of the students’ disappearance is this September 2024. Continued international support demonstrates solidarity with the families. It will also help to ensure that the Mexican administration under newly elected president Claudia Sheinbaum will continue devoting resources to the investigations.
Take action: In advance of the ten-year anniversary of the Ayotzinapa disappearances, write a message to Mexican authorities demanding their cooperation with producing requested documents crucial to the investigation.
Cameroon: Over 130 Men and Boys
Since the beginning of the Boko Haram insurgency in Cameroon in early 2014, Amnesty International has documented the details of specific cases of mass arrests, unlawful killings, excessive use of force, enforced disappearances, deaths, and torture perpetrated by state security forces. Cameroonian security forces arrested at least 1,000 people in the Far North Region accused of supporting Boko Haram, including in mass cordon and search operations where dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of men and boys were rounded up and arrested.
In the most extreme cordon and search operation documented by Amnesty International, 35 direct eyewitnesses and a senior military source confirmed that at least 200 men and boys were arrested on 27 December 2014 in the villages of Magdeme and Doublé. In the same operation conducted jointly by the army, the police and the gendarmerie, at least eight people were killed, including a child, and over 70 buildings were burned down.
The fate of most of those arrested in these two villages remains unknown. Ten years after the incident, an investigation has yet to identify those people who died, reveal the location of their bodies, or interview several key eyewitnesses. At least 130 people remain unaccounted for, presumed to be victims of enforced disappearance, with some evidence suggesting more may have died while in the custody of the security forces.
- Watch a video: 130 Men and Boys Disappeared
- Take Action
- Ask the Cameroonian ambassador (Ambassador Henri Etoundi Essomba) in Washington DC: [email protected]
- Tweet #AskBiya about 130+ disappearances in the Far North with your account
- Ask Paul Biya (#AskBiya), president of Cameroon, on his X account (@PR_Paul_Biya), what happened to the 130+ people
- Ask the Minister of Justice in Cameroon what happened to the 130+ disappeared: [email protected]
Eritrea: Ciham Ali
Ciham Ali was arrested trying to cross the border from Eritrea into Sudan in December of 2012. She was 15 years old. Neither her family nor anyone else has heard from her since.
Born in Los Angeles to Eritrean parents, she moved to Eritrea with her family when her father Ali Abdu Ahmed began working with the administration of President Isaias Afewerki, eventually becoming Minister of Information. Her father fell out with the regime in 2012 and fled into exile after an attempted military coup against the government.
When Ciham Ali sought to flee as well, she was arrested for not possessing the required exit visa. Her enforced disappearance appears to have been in retaliation against her father’s suspected involvement in the coup.
The enforced disappearance of Ciham Ali is a feature of the Eritrean system under Isaias Afewerki. In June 2024, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Eritrea noted that “the human rights situation in Eritrea remained dire.”
It appears that successive U.S. Administrations have failed to intervene in Ciham’s case. Amnesty International is calling on the U.S. State Department to urgently act, as the status quo of refusing to speak up amounts to a failure to protect one of its own citizens.
- Watch a video: Ciham Ali
- Take Action: Sign the petition to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Make a Difference
These seven stories reflect only a fraction of the cases of the disappeared around the world. Thousands of families continue to organize, pressure governments to investigate, and spread global awareness about their loved ones. The injustice and loss may seem, and is, overwhelming–especially when so many years have passed without the truth. But accountability can be achieved even decades later, as in the case of Marco Antonio Molina Theissen, a 14-year-old boy who was disappeared by the Guatemalan military in 1981. Thirty-seven years after his disappearance, the Molina Theissen family achieved a conviction against four senior military officers for the disappearance.
Join Amnesty International in standing with the families. These acts of solidarity offer necessary momentum and provide critical support to those continuing the search.
By The AIUSA Cogroup Writers, which includes the following Amnesty International USA country specialists: Mohammed Abdelsatar, Stan Hreniuk, Jim McDonald, Gilbert Martin, Terrie Rodello, and Cara Hume.