Wars and Migration Crises in Central America

War, flight and post-conflict migration are connected in many ways, not least through the missing persons produced.

In a new book chapter, senior researcher Ninna Nyberg Sørensen juxtaposes the forced disappearances of persons during Guatemala’s civil war with migrant disappearances occurring along clandestine migration paths throughout Mexico and on the borders to the United States.

A central finding is that both situations seem to involve disciplinary effects. By contextualizing the two phenomena historically, the chapter shows how forced disappearance remain a constant threat to Guatemalan lives. During the armed conflict, the Guatemalan state systematically used forced disappearances to stabilize state power through terror and to produce national communities purified of unwanted (but national) political subjects.

In the postwar period, Guatemalan citizens remain subject to forced disappearances in various situations, most notably, but not exclusively, when attempting to cross state borders without authorization.