Colombian human rights defender Yanette Bautista on being accompanied by PBI “green vests”

Yanette Bautista has been fighting against forced disappearances in Colombia since the disappearance of her 32-year-old sister Nydia Erika on August 30, 1987.

Nydia Erika’s body was exhumed on July 26, 1990. A sworn statement made to the Public Ministry’s Special Investigations Office by a former military intelligence agent named members of the Battalion of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (BINCI) of the Colombian National Army as responsible for the crime.

In 1999, Yanette, while in exile for her own safety, founded the Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation (FNEB) which is dedicated to the fight against forced disappearances. The United Victims Registry (RUV), the government body in charge of registering war victims, has registered 150,000 forced disappearances between 1986 and 2017.

The organization has suffered numerous attacks and threats due to its work searching for truth and justice and an end to this crime.

Peace Brigades International has accompanied FNEB occasionally from 2007 and signed a full accompaniment agreement with them in 2016.

Yanette says, “We felt very important, when we began to arrive at meetings with authorities alongside PBI, with their green vests, the authorities started to look at us differently.”

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