LibGuides: Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances: Guatemala

Guatemala

Guatemala has a history of extrajudicial forced disappearances, rooted in the Guatemalan Civil War, which took place between 1960 and 1996.² As of 2013, there are 45,000 people who were documented as disappeared during the conflict era.

Find more information on Guatemala's enforced disappearances and human rights:

Campaign Against Political Killings and Disappearances: Medicolegal Aspects (1993) This report first examines the role of medico-legal skills in uncovering and exposing human rights violations and its role in tracing disappeared children through application of genetic techniques. Two tables in this report give details of 24 cases highlighted in Amnesty International's campaign against political killings and disappearances. Published in 1993
Disappeared in Guatemala: The Case of Efraín Bámaca Velásquez (1995) Tens of thousands of Guatemalans have been forcibly "disappeared" by government forces over the past three decades, many of them civilians and some of them combatants. In an agreement of a commission to study past human rights violations, signed on June 23, 1994, the two sides acknowledged the right of the Guatemalan people to know the truth about these events.
International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) - Guatemala ICMP works with governments, civil society organizations, justice institutions, international organizations and others throughout the world to address the issue of people who have gone missing as a result of armed conflict, human rights abuses, disasters, organized crime, irregular migration and other causes.
OHCHR: Human Rights in Guatemala Find reports, statistics, UN-based treaties, charter documents, and information regarding human rights issues in Guatemala.

Several Guatemalan missing persons posters accompanied with a caption. "Where are they?" (Image source)