On the eve of the eve of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances (August 30), the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) urges Asia-Pacific governments in which media workers have gone missing to take active steps to investigate these critical cases and tackle impunity around missing media workers in the region.

The IFJ notes with serious concern that little progress has been made in the investigations of 11 documented missing cases in the Asia Pacific since it released its first report ‘Without A Trace: Media Workers missing in the Asia-Pacific’ on missing media workers from Asia-Pacific in 2015. Since then, an additional case has been added to the list – that of 24-year-old Pakistani journalist Zeenat Shahzadi, who went missing on August 19, 2015. The young journalist was taken in broad daylight on her way to work. She is the first female journalist in Pakistan to be forcefully disappeared.

The IFJ’s Without A Trace: Media Workers missing in the Asia-Pacificlists the cases of missing media workers from five countries, where investigations into their disappearance have either faltered or failed to identify perpetrators. Collectively, there are 11 cases of journalists who have been missing for a total of over 46,000 days.

Across the region, the missing include, Juanta Nielsen (Australia), Prakash Singh Thakuri, Chitra Narayan Shrestha, Milan Nepali, Madan Paudel (all of Nepal), Ahmed Rilwan Abdulla (Maldives), Zeenat Shahzadi (Pakistan), Joey Estriber (Philippines), and Prageeth Eknaligoda, Subramaniam Ramachandran and Vadivel Nimalarajah (all of Sri Lanka).

Read the IFJ's full statement here