Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras
The Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH) is a human rights group in Honduras. It was started in 1982 by 12 families whose relatives had disappeared, including Bertha Oliva de Nativí, whose husband Tomás Nativí vanished in 1981.
Honduras has a history of coups and military rulers. A civilian government was elected in 1981, but human rights abuses continued. A military unit called Battalion 3-16 carried out killings and torture of people seen as opponents. It received training and support from the United States and from Chile during Augusto Pinochet’s era.
Amnesty International says at least 184 people were disappeared in Honduras between 1980 and 1992, most likely by the Honduran military. COFADEH reports that people from 69 families disappeared in 1982. By the end of that year, 12 families, including Bertha Oliva, formed COFADEH. The group became legally recognized in 2001.
COFADEH’s original goal was to get their disappeared family members back alive. Some cases have had outcomes, but most have not. The group says that between 1980 and 1989 at least 184 people disappeared without state investigations or convictions.
Since then, COFADEH has expanded to address other severe human rights violations, promote human rights education, and document and investigate cases.
Bertha Oliva and other COFADEH members have faced threats, and some have been assaulted, kidnapped, or followed. Amnesty International notes that Bertha Oliva received two death threats in January 2009 and was subject to surveillance in March 2009.
On September 22, 2009, during Honduras’s constitutional crisis, 15 police fired tear gas at the COFADEH office in Tegucigalpa while about 100 people were inside reporting abuses. Amnesty International described the attack as occurring while many people were at the office.
In 2002, COFADEH spoke with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; their representative said Battalion 3-16 had taken different forms since 1979.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 05:11 (CET).