Source:
Colombia ReportsState and paramilitaries responsible for 16,000 forced disappearances: UN
Monday, 23 May 2011 17:02
Tom Heyden
The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has said that the Colombian state and paramilitaries are culpable for 16,000 forced disappearances in the country over the last three decades, Spanish news agency EFE reported Monday.
Christian Salazar, at a forced disappearance seminar in the Colombian capital of Bogota, stated that the current total figure stands at over 57,000 recorded disappearance cases, with 15,600 of these being forced disappearances.
He clarified that these figures are taken from NGOs and that the Prosecutor General's Office has seen "probably more than 26,500 cases of alleged forced disappearances."
These incidents of forced disappearance were mainly "committed by state agents and paramilitary forces who collaborated with them," while "there are more than 3,000 women and 3,000 people under 20 years old" included in the estimates.
The high figures regarding "one of the most serious human rights violations," according to the official, make Colombia "one of the countries in South America and the world with the most disappeared."
Read more:
http://www.colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/16462-state-and-paramilitaries-most-responsible-for-forced-disappearances-un.html
On edit:
It's important to add Colombia is the 3rd largest recipient of US taxpayers' annual foreign aid gifts.