Protect the Women Relatives of Disappeared Victims from Intimidation and Possible Disappearance in their Continued Search for their Loved Ones!

The Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) calls on the Inspector General of the Police to investigate and punish those responsible in the abduction, intimidation and eventual release of Mayuri Inoka, wife of a disappeared last 1 November in Anuradhapura, a district in the North Central Province of Sri Lanka.   

AFAD also asks the Sri Lankan public especially those who value life, truth and justice to help secure Mayuri from further intimidations and protect her and her twins from possible danger. 

Mayuri was on her way to the city to buy milk for her 11-month old twins when according to her, well-built men boarded her three wheeler vehicle. A gun was pointed on her face, and then she was blindfolded with her hands tied behind her back.  Later she was shoved into a van where she was continually threatened of possible disappearance if she will not stop her campaign to find her husband. She was eventually released an hour and a half later. 

Remembering the Desaparecidos through Patriotic Music and Poetry

Loss comes in many ways. All Saints’ Day highlights the loss arising from the death of loved ones. Visiting cemeteries or columbaria in the company of other relatives of departed kin somehow eases the pain of loss.

But we who have lost our loved ones to enforced disappearance have no remains to bury or cremate – no graves or cinerary vaults to seal the certainty of our kin’s fate.

As we perpetually equivocate between hope and despair, closure becomes as elusive as justice. To calm our unsettledness, we draw support and strength from other families and friends of the disappeared.

Burmese government urged to investigate the enforced disappearance of Sumlut Roi Ja

On the third anniversary of the abduction of Sumlut Roi Ja, an ethnic Kachin woman from Burma, we, the undersigned organizations, call on the Burmese government to thoroughly investigate her enforced disappearance and hold the perpetrators accountable.

On 28 October 2011, Burma Army soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion 321 abducted 28-year-old Sumlut Roi Ja along with her husband and father-in-law from their family farm near Hkaibang Village, Momauk Township, Kachin State.

Pursue the Struggle for Justice in Honor of the Memories of the Disappeared!

“We join with the families and friends of victims of the disappeared of Sri Lanka in honoring the memories of their loved ones as they gather today to commemorate the National Day of the Disappeared”, Mary Aileen Bacalso, Secretary General of the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), said in a statement. 

The memorial is an important and sacred site for the families to meet annually, share their stories of perseverance and little victories in the search for truth and justice despite very difficult circumstances under a repressive government. It is where they can collectively honor the memories of their disappeared loved ones. It is also a manifestation of the Sri Lankan government’s dark human rights record both of the past and of the present.