The headquarters of the Search Unit for Persons Reported as Missing, UBPD, was the place that the Sanabria Correa family chose to say goodbye to Ander Alfonso Sanabria. There the territorial team recognized the search that they have patiently carried out and that with the accompaniment of the entity they not only know the truth of what happened, they also said goodbye to their son, ex-partner and father as they always wanted.
Ander Alfonso, the oldest of 5 siblings, was born in Barrancabermeja, a municipality in the department of Santander, where the Sanabria Correa family left in search of calmer horizons and with the intention of seeing their children grow up away from the wave of violence that lurked in his hometown.
“Don’t close the door on me, I’m coming,” Ander said as he left his house on January 14, 2007, the last time the family saw him alive.
The year Ander was going to turn 23 years old, he was already responsible for his partner and two children. After searching for him in hospitals, morgues and cemeteries in Casanare, the family reported his disappearance to the Yopal CTI, but they did not receive the expected answers.
The months passed and María Doris, his mother, received the alleged information via telephone that her son had died in combat in a confrontation with the army, they told the UBPD.
Despite the contradictions of the facts, María Doris and Yuliana Hernández, her partner at the time, received information from a person that the body of a young man with the same characteristics as Ander had been left in the Aguazul cemetery.
By that date they had already made several attempts to clarify the truth, they say that they always found a barrier that did not allow them to advance in their search. For this reason, Maria Doris, together with Yuliana, tried to locate the place where Ander’s body had supposedly been buried and there they placed a handmade wooden cross; a guide that would help them not lose track of the body of their son and partner, if it was really true that he was buried there.
María Doris took refuge in her other children and Yuliana, for her part, reorganized herself and established a family with her two children and a new partner. The two say that they always sensed that the body was there.
María Doris says that, in a dream with her son, they walked hand in hand on a beach and he, looking into her eyes, said: “Mom, I knew that you were not going to forget me.” With that dream, she assures that she finally convinced herself that her body was there.
Nearly 17 years passed, until the investigative team of the Search Unit for Missing Persons, Yopal headquarters, took steps to obtain information on the bodies disposed in the Aguazul cemetery between 1995 and 2007. After Exhaustive hours and days reviewing records, databases, requesting information from the National Institute of Legal Medicine, the intervention was carried out that resulted in the recovery of 29 bodies.
The forensic team says that finding the wooden cross with the numbers 05/25/82 and a name that could barely be read as Andera Sanabria, was the clue that, after several days of verification, led them to find the name of Ander Alfonso Sanabria Correa.
“We never gave up or stopped looking for him…here in the Search Unit they have treated us as if they were one’s family,” said Yuliana, remembering the call they received from the UBPD.
The Sanabria family participated in the process of recovering the body, also in taking genetic samples and the identification dialogues that allowed us to technically confirm that it was Ander’s body.
At the same time, María Doris has continued investigating the events and it was only until this year that her son Ander was recognized as a victim in Sub-Case 03 in Casanare by the JEP.
“As a Search Unit we are happy to dignify the pain and contribute to healing it,” said Sonia Rodríguez Torrente, coordinator of Yopal’s internal territorial work group.
Ander’s body was buried in the Yopal cemetery, the wooden cross was left behind, it is now recognized by a book-shaped tombstone that preserves not only his names, but also one of the last photos that were taken of him while he was still alive. .
Source: Search Unit for Persons Reported Missing, UBPD
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