Bogotá, Colombia. The Director General of the Unit for the Search of Persons Deemed as Missing (UBPD), Luz Janeth Forero Martínez, highlighted the role that artificial intelligence plays in humanitarian efforts to locate missing persons, while speaking at the Gabo Festival 2026, which is being held in Bogotá.
During her presentation, the official explained that one of the entity’s main challenges is to collect, organize, and connect enormous volumes of information to reconstruct the whereabouts of thousands of people who went missing during the Colombian armed conflict.
“There are missing persons who can no longer even be seen. We colloquially say that they are transparent,” he expressed when describing the complexity of the investigations after decades of conflict.
Forero Martínez pointed out that the Unit has incorporated artificial intelligence and data analysis methodologies to identify patterns and establish connections between millions of documentary records, a task that would be practically impossible using traditional processes.
One of the most relevant projects corresponds to the intervention of the archive of the defunct Administrative Department of Security (DAS), composed of millions of folios preserved between the General Archive of the Nation and a warehouse located in Facatativá.
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As reported, the entity has processed nearly one million documents, managing to establish links with approximately 400 missing persons who are part of its search universe.
The director emphasized that the Unit’s work has an exclusively humanitarian focus. For this reason, she explained that the institution uses the term “information providers” to refer to those who contribute data on the cases, avoiding labels such as “perpetrators,” “criminals,” or “offenders,” with the purpose of facilitating cooperation and promoting the acknowledgment of the harm caused.
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Likewise, it reported that the UBPD has identified more than 15,000 sites of forensic interest throughout the Colombian territory, including cemeteries, graves, former crematoriums, and other places where missing persons could be found.
Recovery efforts are carried out by interdisciplinary teams composed of anthropologists, physicians, dentists, topographers, and other forensic specialists, who work under principles of dignity and respect for the victims and their families.
Forero Martínez highlighted that even the discovery of a small bone structure or an associated object can represent an enormous relief for the relatives, who in many cases have spent decades waiting to know the fate of their loved ones.
Once recovered, the bodies are transported to the Comprehensive Forensic Approach and Identification Centers (CIAFIS), where anthropological, medical, and genetic studies are conducted to establish their identity before proceeding with a dignified handover to their families.
During his speech, he also presented some of the main results achieved by the Unit. He indicated that the entity has recovered nearly 5,300 bodies, has carried out more than 700 dignified handovers to family members, and has managed to find nearly 600 people alive, many of them recruited as children by armed groups and who remained missing for years due to the conflict and the isolation of the territories.
Finally, the director general stated that the combination of artificial intelligence, document analysis, fieldwork, and forensic sciences is strengthening the Unit’s capacity to provide answers to thousands of families who are still seeking to know the whereabouts of their loved ones, reaffirming the institution’s commitment to truth, memory, and humanitarian reparation.
