Source: Amnesty International –
Guinean authorities must reveal the fate of all victims of abductions and enforced disappearances, including National Front for the Defence of the Constitution (Front national pour la défense de la Constitution – FNDC) activists Oumar Sylla, known as Foniké Mengué, and Mamadou Billo Bah, who were forcibly disappeared two years ago today.
In a joint statement, Amnesty International, the Coordination of Human Rights Organizations (Coordination des Organisations de Défense des Droits de l’Homme – CODDH) of Guinea and the West African Human Rights Defenders Network (WAHRDN) also called for the authorities to ensure those suspected to be responsible for the abductions and enforced disappearances are brought to justice and that the victims and their families obtain truth, justice and reparations.
We reiterate the extreme gravity of the crime of enforced disappearance, which no circumstances, however exceptional, can justify.
“The last two years have been agony for the families of Oumar Sylla and Mamadou Billo Bah. There is no evidence that the Guinean authorities have carried out any investigation to find them although they have announced an investigation. We demand that their fate or whereabouts are revealed, as well as those of all victims of enforced disappearance in Guinea,” the human rights organizations said.
Under international law, the crime of enforced disappearance is the arrest, detention, abduction or any form of deprivation of liberty by State agents, followed by the authorities’ refusal to acknowledge the detention or to reveal the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person.
“We reiterate the extreme gravity of the crime of enforced disappearance, which no circumstances, however exceptional, can justify, and which entails an increased risk of torture, ill-treatment and extrajudicial executions,” said the human rights organizations.
Mamadou Billo Bah and Oumar Sylla were arrested on 9 July 2024 at the latter’s home in Conakry. They were allegedly taken by special forces to the Loos archipelago to be interrogated and tortured, according to a third member of FNDC who was arrested with the two others and released the day after. The authorities have denied holding them.
Mamadou Billo Bah’s wife told Amnesty International: “The children have written a letter to their father for Father’s Day. They say they can hear his voice in the silence. They say how much they miss him, that they are waiting for him, and that life is hard without him.”
The FNDC, a civil society movement, was disbanded in 2022. Oumar Sylla, its national coordinator had called for demonstrations on 11 July 2024 against, among other things, repression of the media and the high cost of living.