One of the entities that also reacted to Gustavo Petro’s victory during the second presidential round on June 19 was the Search Unit for Persons Given as Disappeared (UBPD), which is part of the Comprehensive System for Peace that was born at the request of the victims at the negotiating table in Havana.
Directives of the Unit emphasized the announcements made by the president-elect, Gustavo Petro, and the vice-president-elect, Francia Márquez, about how peace will be the central axis of his mandate, so that they celebrated that the next government is wondering about the void in society left by thousands of disappeared people due to the armed conflict.
The statement attached to the pronouncement indicates that “the search for more than 100,000 people who have preliminarily identified the Search Unit must be a priority on the government agenda and the State as a whole.
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The Unit added that the truth about the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared persons in the context and due to the conflict constitutes a fundamental step in the peace building.
For her part, the director of the Search Unit, Luz Marina Monzón Cifuentes, stated that “as one of the columns of the Comprehensive System for Peace we are in charge of seeking answers to the questions that the elected government is asking today: “How many people are not with us?”, “How many people who disappeared along the roads of Colombia and are not found? There are tens of thousands”.
He indicated that “this void in society to which reference is made has been left by thousands of disappeared persons daily since 1948, whom we are looking for with their families, friends, organizations of the civil society and all those people who want to contribute with the truth, reparation and, above all, non-repetition”, he pointed out.
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Finally, they expressed their admiration for the participatory and respectful way in which Colombian men and women went to the polls, and assured that they would maintain their commitment with coexistence based on respect for Human Rights and full compliance with the 2016 Peace Agreement, which put the victims of the armed conflict at the center.
