Colombia map. INQUIRER STOCK PHOTO

BOGOTA — Colombian authorities on Friday denied a United Nations report claiming that the bodies of 20,000 people who were forcibly disappeared over decades of conflict were being kept at Bogota airport.

On Thursday, the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances stated that “thousands of unidentified bodies lie in poorly managed cemeteries or storage facilities,” citing “a hangar at Bogota airport where around 20,000 unidentified bodies are currently stored.”

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Bogota Mayor Carlos Fernando Galan denied the report that followed a visit by a UN delegation to Colombia. He asked the UN to substantiate its claims.

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Isabelita Mercado, senior advisor on peace and reconciliation at Bogota town hall, told the W station the city’s cemeteries held the bodies of around 5,500 unidentified missing people or people who had been identified but whose bodies have not been claimed.

READ: Colombia turns drug-fumigation planes into fire fighters

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The UN said its report was based on information it had received from local authorities but didn’t say which ones.

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A press officer did not respond to Agence France-Presse’s requests for comment.

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The UN’s special envoy to Colombia, Carlos Ruiz Massieu, also questioned the report.

He told Noticias Caracol news channel that its authors did “not represent any United Nations entity” and asked them to “clarify” the report and possibly “rectify” it.

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READ: From Colombia’s jungle to the world’s fish tanks

The Search Unit for Persons Reported Missing, which is in charge of locating and identifying the thousands of people who disappeared over the course of six decades of conflict, said it had “no information” on the existence of a “site of forensic interest” near the airport.

The organization has counted more than 104,000 people who went missing during the conflict between security forces, guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug cartels which began in the 1960s.

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The biggest guerrilla groupwinning plus, FARC, laid down arms after signing a peace deal in 2016 but a handful of armed groups remain active in the country.

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