Countries around the world have been urged to establish and activate protocols for immediate search of disappeared persons.

Two United Nations expert groups on enforced disappearances made the call on the states ahead of the ‘international day of the victims of enforced disappearances’ on Sunday (30 August).

The UN groups described enforced disappearance as “heinous practice” and said this is still used in a number of countries.

The Committee on Enforced Disappearances and the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances said over the last year, they have been working on 246 recent cases of enforced disappearances perpetrated all over the world.

“These cases are nevertheless only the tip of the iceberg of thousands of cases which are never reported either because of fear of reprisals or because the security conditions do not allow doing so,” they said in a statement.

It also acknowledged that the lack of resources and the insufficient awareness of existing international mechanisms are other reasons why many cases of enforced disappearances are never reported to the United Nations.

Following the activation of the urgent actions procedures by the two groups over the last year, 13 disappeared persons were found alive, in detention, and sadly two were found dead, according to the statement.

The UN groups urged upon governments to activate all means of search of disappeared persons in a systematic way.