Washington, DC., 7 April 2025 ——
Forced disappearance generally refers to making someone vanish, often violently. It’s a term used in contexts where a person is taken and their whereabouts are deliberately hidden, with the intent of controlling the actions of others, causing harm, and silencing any objectors.
In authoritarian regimes, forced disappearance refers to the state or its agents, (e.g. the police, the military, or ICE) abducting individuals, often without a warrant or due process, and then intentionally concealing their fate and whereabouts. The victims are typically not acknowledged as being in state custody, and their families and lawyers are left in the dark about their condition and location. These actions are part of a broader strategy of state control, repression, and intimidation.
Suppression, Intimidation, and Fear
Forcibly disappearing individuals create an atmosphere of intimidation, fear, and uncertainty. It is frequently used to target individuals who are seen as a threat to the government. Victims often include political activists, journalists, human rights defenders, members of opposition groups, specific ethnic, religious, or social groups, or anyone critical of the government. Disappearing political opponents and neutralizing the opposition without direct involvement, gives the government deniability, but also sends the message that dissent, and opposition will not be tolerated.
Alexei Navalny is an example of government-targeted opposition. Navalny was a Russian opposition leader, anti-corruption lawyer, activist, and a political prisoner of Vladimir Putin and the Russian state. He survived a failed assassination attempt after being poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok in 2020. He was transferred to Berlin for treatment; a move that saved his life in the moment. In 2021, Navalny returned to Russia and was immediately imprisoned. He was disappeared in the Russian prison system in December 2023. However, in February 2024 he turned up in an Artic Circle penal colony in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug where Russian authorities reported he died. There is no doubt that the Russian government disappeared and killed Alexei Navalny.
When individuals disappear without explanation, it creates widespread fear among the population. Just the threat of being disappeared can silence dissent, as people are less likely to speak out or take action against the government if they are afraid for their safety or fear that they could be next. This serves to suppress freedom of speech political expression, and other basic human rights.
But, forcibly disappearing individuals not only targets the victims but also their families and communities. Loved ones are left in a state of confusion and distress, not knowing whether their family member is dead or alive. This psychological toll is part of the regime’s power to weaken the resolve of the opposition and prevent collective resistance.
Undermining the Rule of Law
Forced disappearance undermines the rule of law, as it represents an illegal and extrajudicial action by the state, and occurs as a part of broader human rights abuses. By making individuals vanish, governments aim to cover up their involvement in torture, extrajudicial killings, or other crimes. In most cases, the individual is never officially arrested or charged, therefore there is no record of their mistreatment or execution. Further, the victims’ families have no access to justice or the ability to hold authorities accountable. To avoid accountability, governments often use forced disappearance to bypass the legal system. There is no trial, no due process, and no transparency. This creates a situation where the state operates outside of the rule of law. It shows that the regime can violate basic human rights with impunity, making it clear that no one is safe, not even within the bounds of law. This erodes trust in the justice system and increases the regime’s control over society.
Santiago Maldonado was snatched by Border Patrol during a demonstration by protesters of the Mapuche indigenous community in the southern Province of Chubut, Argentina in August 2017. He was never seen alive again. Maldonado’s body was discovered two months later in the Chubut River. Autopsy reports indicated he died by drowning – immersed in the water of the Chubut River, contributed by hypothermia. The report indicated that he had been underwater for at least fifty-five days. There was no physical evidence of violence or injuries to his body. Still, there were enough questions surrounding the fact that he was last in the custody of the Argentine National Gendarmerie, that multiple judges opened, closed, and reopened the case of the death of Santiago Maldonado. For many in Argentina, this echoes a dark period in the country’s history when people were systematically disappeared.
In the United States, the Trump administration has created another method of forcible disappearance by snatching people off of the streets across America, circumventing the justice system, denying due process to those arrested, and quickly and secretly transporting them via military aircraft to the notorious El Salvadoran prison, Cecot. One of the persons snatched and deported to Cecot is Abrego Garcia, despite being granted legal protection by a judge – was detained by immigration officials and sent to Cecot. The Trump administration admitted that Garcia was mistakenly sent to El Salvador. However, the administration said that it had no way of getting him back.
This is a prison the US has contracted with to house prisoners – that the US pays – to house prisoners in. This is not a case where Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador and then arrested by El Salvadoran police. He was taken into ICE custody, not given his right to due process, and delivered by US officials directly to the prison. For the US to say it cannot get him back is offensive. But more than that, the Trump administration admitted to the mistake. To refuse to correct the mistake is lawless, inhuman, and an affront to the Constitution.
Security forces abducting people, especially those legally in the country or under the protection of asylum is extremely concerning – it should be extremely concerning to everyone.
International Condemnation and Denial
In many cases, authoritarian regimes deny any involvement in forced disappearances and destroy evidence to prove otherwise, making it difficult for international bodies to hold them accountable. The efforts by the government to obstruct and prevent justice leave victim’s families without recourse or the ability to seek justice and have closure.
Pinochet’s authoritarian military rule in Chile lasted seventeen years from 1973 to 1990, which left 40,175 victims, including those detained, tortured, executed, and disappeared.
Saddam Hussein forcibly disappeared as many as 300,000 people, in Iraq between 1968 and 2003, including 100,000 Kurds. In Syria, throughout nearly fourteen years of brutal conflict, Bashar al-Assad is responsible for the forcible disappearance of some 200,000 people and the deaths of at least 600,000.
In China, an estimated one million Uyghurs (Turkish-speaking Sunni Muslims) have been disappeared by the Chinese government. Since the coup in January 2021, the junta in Myanmar has disappeared thousands, as human rights organizations demand the junta be held accountable.
Death Flights
Death flights is a term that refers to the practice of forced disappearances and executions carried out by military and paramilitary groups often in the context of dictatorships and authoritarian regimes. In these death flights, political prisoners or suspected dissidents were sometimes drugged, placed on planes, and flown out over the ocean or remote areas, where they were then thrown out of the aircraft alive, often to die from the fall or drown. These flights were a method of execution used to conceal the killings, leaving little to no evidence behind. Victims were anyone perceived as a threat to the ruling regime. The flights were used as a tool of terror.
The term is most notably associated with human rights violations that occurred during the Dirty War in Argentina between 1976 and 1983, in which the junta disappeared at least 30,000 people. However, similar practices have been reported in other countries with oppressive governments.
Death flights were used to disappear people in Colombia and Guatemala. The French used death flights to disappear people in French Madagascar (1947) and during the Algerian War (1957). The South African Defense Force (Delta 40) used death flight to execute and disappear hundreds of activists and rebel fighters during the South African apartheid government.
Mexico’s Truth Commission revealed that Mexican authorities used death flights to dispose of activists and dissidents during that country’s dirty war from 1965 to 1990. There are no lists and no number of victims known at this time.
Photo Credit: “Donde esta Santiago Maldonado?” by fotos.rotas. Licensed under CC BY NC ND 2.0
Lara Kajs is the founder and executive director of The Genocide Report, an NGO nonprofit in Washington DC. She is the author of Assad’s Syria, and Stories from Yemen: A Diary from the Field, available in e-books, paperback, and hardcover at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, and independent booksellers worldwide. Distributed by Ingram Publishing. Ms. Kajs frequently speaks about atrocity crimes, forced displacement, state terrorism, and International Humanitarian Law (IHL). Follow and connect with Lara Kajs on Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, and Bluesky.