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enforced disappearance

© UNEP/Duncan Moore

News in Brief 30 March 2023

  • UN chief calls on humanity to ‘declare war on waste’
  • Guatemala: UN rights chief alarmed by reprisals against anti-corruption officials
  • Honduras must step up efforts to tackle enforced disappearances: rights experts
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3'23"
© UNHCR/Susan Hopper

News in Brief 17 May 2022

  • Mexico’s 100,000 ‘disappeared’ is a tragedy, says UN rights chief Bachelet

  • COVID-19 outbreak in DPRK sparks UN rights office warning over impact on population

  • UN refugee agency chief Grandi highlights dangers for LGBTIQ+ on international day

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UN Photo/Mark Garten

“New and alarming patterns” of enforced disappearance emerging: Zeid

The practice of enforced disappearance is not decreasing, it’s “morphing”, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has said.

Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein made the remarks in a video message to a High-Level plenary meeting of the UN General Assembly, where he warned about “new and alarming patterns” that are emerging in the context of migration, internal conflict and violent extremism.

UN Photo/Evan Schneider

UN often first to listen to families of the disappeared

The more than 40,000 cases of people worldwide who have been arrested, detained or abducted against their will represent human beings, not numbers, a UN human rights expert has said.

Bernard Duhaime is vice-chair of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.

One of its main tasks is to assist families in determining the fate or whereabouts of their relatives who have disappeared, for example, through action by their governments.