International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances 2022: Where do the ‘disappeared’ disappear to?
"How are our loved ones? Are they eating well? Are they being tortured? Are they… alive?" These questions haunt the family members of the victims of enforced disappearance as they spend agonising weeks, months and years, holding out hope against all odds.
At least 522 people have become victims of enforced disappearance between 2009 and 2018 in Bangladesh, cite various human rights organisations.
Most survivors who come back home after being released from their forced captivity stay away from the public eye, never revealing where they were or who took them. A March 2022 study by the Centre for Governance Studies (CGS) tracked down cases happening between 2019 and 2021 and found that of the 30 percent of victims that were released, or officially arrested and thrown in jail, not one spoke up.
But on condition of anonymity, five such survivors answered the questions asked most pertinently by their loved ones.
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