In the commemoration of the Week of the Disappeared Detainee, the Victims Unit in Norte de Santander and Arauca, continues to accompany the relatives of victims of enforced disappearance.

On the occasion of the different commemorative events held in Norte de Santander, for the Week of the Detained and Disappeared, the Bureau of Departmental Participation of Victims expressed its concern about the increase in the situation of violence and the cases of forced disappearance in the border area with Venezuela.

"There are more than 150 people missing at the border", said Luis Alberto Durán, delegate of the Bureau of Departmental Participation of Victims and the Executive Committee of the municipal board.

In Norte de Santander, according to general historical compensation figures, from 2009 to 2018, 1,236 people have been administratively compensated for the crime of enforced disappearance with an investment of $ 8,804,387,352 million.

To date, according to the registry of National Information Network (RNI) in the department there is a figure of 4,758 people victims of enforced disappearance. Cúcuta, with 3,906 events, is the city with the highest number of cases, followed by Ocaña with 163 cases and Tibú with 134, among other municipalities.

The territorial director of the Victims Unit, Alicia María Rojas Pérez, said that in the midst of recorded cases and life histories, an accompaniment has been made with the psychosocial group in processes of location, recovery and exhumation in this point of the east of country, likewise, that an accompaniment has been made in the dignified delivery of corpses.

In the commemorative events, relatives of victims remembered their loved ones and asked the judicial authorities for progress in the investigations.

"We have been making progress in the project, we will not forget them, their absence will not be impunity. We expect the articulation of the Prosecutor´s Office, of exhumations, also, with Justice and Peace, and with United Nations, with the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights and with the International Convention, for everything that concerns our loved ones who are missing. We have made progress in making visible the forced disappearance in the country but we do not know what is happening with our beings who are in mass graves or in the Colombian jungles", said Luis Alberto Durán.

 (FIN/CEG/LMY)