A Portrait of Absence

Machetes protrude from the wall of a wooden house in Puerto Nariño, a small town in the Colombian Amazon region. Many victims of forced disappearance in Colombia have been killed and dismembered using machetes and chainsaws.

Skulls of people killed by different parties during the internal conflict in Colombia lie in the National School of Criminalistic and Forensic Science (ENAC), in Medellín, Antioquia, Colombia.

The police station in Toribío, a small village in the Colombian region of Cauca, stands fortified against attack. Despite the peace agreement between the government and FARC in November 2016, the Cauca region continues to have one of the highest rates of violence and killings in Colombia. The police station in Toribío has been heavily guarded and protected since a bomb attack in July 2011, which killed at least three people and injured upwards of 70.

A grave in a cemetery in Florencia, capital of the southern department of Caquetá, in Colombia. Historically, Caquetá was a zone dominated by illegal armed groups who controlled drug production and trafficking. The zone had become a disputed zone between paramilitary groups and guerrillas, transforming the region into the most violent of Colombia.

Photographs of victims of forced disappearance lie on the street in front of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) building in the Colombian capital Bogotá, as part of a protest to demand that the court open a macro-case (one with a societal, rather than individual focus) into forced disappearances. The JEP was established in 2017 to investigate and try abuses committed during Colombia’s internal conflict. The photo in the foreground is of the economist and sociologist Nydia Erika Bautista, who joined the 19th of April Movement (M-19), a leftist urban guerilla movement, which after its demobilization became a political party. Bautista was disappeared and murdered by members of the Colombian national army in 1987.

The remains of a body exhumed during a search for victims of Operación Orion lie laid out in the Jardín Cementerio Universal, in Medellín, Colombia. Operación Orion was an action by security forces against Medellín urban guerillas in 2002. Human rights and civil society organizations claim it to have been a joint operation between State forces and paramilitaries, or at least that there was cooperation with paramilitaries to some extent. The bodies of a number of people killed in the operation were buried, unregistered, in mass graves in the cemetery. After two weeks of excavations, a team of forensics found two of the nine bodies they were looking for.

A passer-by looks at the photograph of a missing person during a protest against forced disappearance, in Bogotá, Colombia. The protest was organized by the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE) on the International Day of Enforced Disappearances, which is commemorated every year on 30 August.

The remains of a body exhumed in the Jardín Cementerio Universal during a search for victims of Operación Orion – a military action against Medellín urban guerillas in 2002 – lie ready to be transported to a forensic laboratory to be identified. The bodies of a number of people killed in the operation were buried, unregistered, in mass graves in the cemetery. After two weeks of excavations, a team of forensics found two of the nine bodies they were looking for.

A passer-by looks at photos relating to Colombia’s internal conflict, in a street exhibition in Bogotá. In the years leading up to 2013, the conflict had resulted in around 220,000 deaths, 80 percent of which were civilians, according to the Historical Memory Group (GMH). Millions of Colombians – some 15 percent of the population – had been displaced.

A poster with the photo of a missing person glued to a lamppost in Bogotá, Colombia, reads: ’We are looking for you. Your family.'

Members of the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE) protest in front of the Prosecutor's Office in Bogotá, Colombia. The protest was organized in response to an increase in the number of murders and disappearances of social leaders and human rights activists, as well as of former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) combatants demobilized after the 2016 peace agreement with the Colombian government. Hundreds of former FARC combatants had been killed since the agreement, and the United Nations Office for Human Rights in Colombia had also received information about the assassination of 120 human rights defenders.

The mother of Carlos Alberto Pedraza Salcedo, who was disappeared in Bogotá on 19 January 2015, sits in the living room of her home in Bogotá, Colombia. She wears a T-shirt bearing his image, and has photographs of her son on the wall. Pedraza was found dead, with a gunshot wound to the head, in a nearby municipality two days after he disappeared. A student leader, he had been investigating 'false positives' (extrajudicial executions committed by the Colombian security forces) on behalf of the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE).

An altar to the memory of Eduardo Loffsner Torres stands in the home of his former partner Luz Marina Hache Contreras, who has spent decades looking for him. Loffsner, who organized the Workers' Union of the National Pedagogical University and was a member of the M-19, a leftist urban guerilla movement, disappeared in November 1986, when he was 31.

Graffiti painted outside of the National University of Colombia in Bogotá commemorates the thousands of victims of forced disappearance in the country. Relatives of some of the disappeared have pasted pictures of their missing loved ones onto the painting.

Forensic anthropologist John Fredy Ramirez Santana carries the remains of an unidentified body exhumed in the Jardín Cementerio Universal cemetery in Medellín, during a search for victims of Operación Orion – an action by security forces against Medellín urban guerillas in 2002. Human rights and civil society organizations claim it to have been a joint operation between State forces and paramilitaries, or at least that there was cooperation with paramilitaries to some extent. The remains will be transported to a forensic laboratory in Medellín to be identified. The bodies of a number of people killed in the operation were buried, unregistered, in mass graves in the cemetery. After two weeks of excavations, a team of forensics found two of the nine bodies they were looking for.

Doña Analigia wears a dress given to her by her son Roberto Antonio, before he was forcibly disappeared 16 years previously, at the age of 25. Doña Analigia and the association she belongs to, the Madres de la Candelaria, which assists people in tracing what has happened to the forcibly disappeared, say Roberto Antonio was tortured and killed by paramilitaries in the village of Toldas de Peque in Antioquia.

Elizabeth López Suspes, the niece of David Suspes Celis – a chef forcibly disappeared in 1985, during the siege of the Palace of Justice in Bogotá  – leaves the San Gerardo Mayela Parish in Bogotá, after a mass given in memory of the disappeared. She carries a chair depicting Julio César Andrade, an auxiliary magistrate of the Supreme Court, who also disappeared during the siege. The Palace of Justice siege was one of the deadliest events of Colombia’s internal conflict. In November 1985, members of the 19th of April Movement (M-19) took over the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, taking hundreds of people hostage, including all 25 of the Supreme Court justices. Security forces stormed and retook the palace, in an operation that left up to 100 people dead, including many justices. Eleven survivors were taken away by security forces and never seen again.

Nidia Mancera flips through her memory diary, the day before the 17th anniversary of her son Deiber Castaño Mancera's disappearance. Deiber disappeared in March 2003, when he was 24. Nidia says she hopes that her son is alive and that someday he will return home.

A passer-by looks at the photographs of missing persons, during a protest organized by the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE), on the 35th anniversary of the siege of the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, Colombia. In November 1985, members of the leftist M-19 guerrilla group took over the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, taking hundreds of people hostage, including all 25 of the Supreme Court justices. The Colombian army stormed and retook the palace, in an operation that left up to 100 people dead, including many justices. Eleven survivors were taken away by the military and never seen again.

Luz Marina Bernal rests her hands on a photo of her son Fair Leonardo Porras Bernal, during a protest against forced disappearances organized by the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE), in Bogotá, Colombia. Leonardo was one of the victims of the so-called ‘false positives’ scandal, in which security forces, in order to receive promotion or other benefits, lured vulnerable people  to remote areas with the offer of work, killed them, and passed them off to authorities as guerrillas, to boost combat kill rates. According to a UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, examples of such killings date back to the 1980s, although nearly 80 percent of them took place between 2000 and 2008. The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) records that 6,402 people were killed in this manner between 2002 and 2008 alone.

A passer-by looks at the photos of missing persons during a protest on the 36th anniversary of the siege of the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, Colombia. In November 1985, members of the 19th of April Movement (M-19) took over the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, taking hundreds of people hostage, including all 25 of the Supreme Court justices. Security forces stormed and retook the palace, in an operation that left up to 100 people dead, including many justices. Eleven survivors were taken away by security forces and never seen again.

Handprints of relatives of disappeared people and photographs of the missing adorn a wall of the headquarters of the Madres de la Candelaria, an organization created in Medellín, Colombia, in March 1999, in response to the many forced disappearances taking place in the country. Every Friday, female relatives of the disappeared gather to commemorate them and protest their disappearances.

Samantha, granddaughter of Ana Rosa Castiblanco, lights candles during a protest on the 35th anniversary of the siege of the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, Colombia. Ana Rosa, a kitchen assistant at the Palace of Justice, disappeared during the 1985 siege of the Palace, when she was 32 and pregnant. Her remains were returned to her family in 2017.

Relatives of the victims of forced disappearance protest in front of the Palace of Justice in Plaza de Bolívar in Bogotá, Colombia. In November 1985, members of  the 19th of April Movement (M-19) took over the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, taking hundreds of people hostage, including all 25 of the Supreme Court justices. Security forces stormed and retook the palace, in an operation that left up to 100 people dead, including many justices. Eleven survivors were taken away by security forces and never seen again.

Inés Castiblanco, sister of Ana Rosa Castiblanco, records a video during a protest in front of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) building in Bogotá, Colombia.  She wears a mask bearing the question: ‘Where are they?’  Ana Rosa, a kitchen assistant at the Palace of Justice, disappeared during the 1985 siege of the Palace, when she was 32 and pregnant. Her remains were returned to her family in 2017. The JEP was established in 2017 to investigate and try abuses committed during Colombia’s internal conflict.

Photographic cutouts of disappeared members of the Patriotic Union (UP), a leftist political party founded by members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian Communist Party, stand in the Plaza de Bolívar in Bogotá, Colombia. During the 1980s, the party’s leadership and members were subject to violent attack and assassinations, seemingly carried out with political motives by drug lords, paramilitary groups, and some members of the government's armed forces. Well over 5,000 people were killed, in what is now widely considered to be a case of genocide. While some investigations were opened and some perpetrators convicted, most of the murders were never solved.

A detail from Colombian artist Teófilo Hernández’s sculpture, the Martyrs’ Memory Tree, which es located in the surrounding area of the Center of Memory, Peace and Reconciliation (CMPR). The center focuses on commemorating victims of violations committed during Colombia’s internal conflict, reparations, and investigation into the truth.

A photograph of Benjamín Marín Lizarazo is displayed at the Santamaria Bullring in Bogotá, a  day before the International Day of the Victims of Forced Disappearance. Lizarazo, a journalist and social leader in the rural region of Casanare, disappeared in 2001 and his whereabouts are still unknown. The day after his disappearance, members of the Colombian military raided his house.

Silhouettes of bodies lie drawn on the streets of Bogotá in protest against the so-called ‘false positives’ scandal, in which security forces, in order to receive promotion or other benefits, lured vulnerable people to remote areas with the offer of work, killed them, and passed them off to authorities as guerrillas, to boost combat kill rates. According to a UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, examples of such killings date back to the 1980s, although nearly 80 percent of them took place between 2000 and 2008. The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) records that 6,402 people were killed in this manner between 2002 and 2008 alone.

The Páramo de Sumapaz, a natural park near Bogotá considered the largest páramo ecosystem in the world, was reputedly used by guerilla groups as a corridor for weapons trafficking and transporting kidnap victims, and by various perpetrators as a burial place for the forcibly disappeared.

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