The organization raised the alarm, warning that reducing funding would affect investigations, forensic interventions, identification laboratories, territorial presence, family participation, and the infrastructure and technology that make the search possible.

The UBPD warned that limiting resources to that figure would jeopardize essential capabilities needed to continue the humanitarian and extrajudicial search for more than 137,000 missing persons.

Among other things, the agency noted it would be unable to proceed with over 10,000 exhumation sites to investigate more than 15,000 identified points of forensic interest.

It also warned that the work of some 25,000 searchers would be impacted and stated that the goal of conducting at least 690 humanitarian and extrajudicial investigations projected for 2027 would not be met.

As UBPD Director General Luz Janeth Forero emphasized, the cut in investment resources directly affects the two pillars that make the search possible: interdisciplinary investigation and the territorial operational deployment of investigative and forensic teams.

She stressed that the institution’s priority is “to preserve the capabilities that currently allow us to advance investigations and provide the answers families have awaited for decades regarding the fate of their loved ones.”

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