99 missing Egyptians found in prison, says interior ministry

The ministry had assigned a team to investigate the whereabouts of 191 people after their families submitted complaints to the Council.

"Regarding complaints about claims of enforced disappearances, the interior ministry said that 99 cases were held in various detention facilities pending legal cases," the NCHR statement read.

The Council added that 15 people had been released from police custody, three were fugitives, and one had run away from home.

"We will also wait to see if any of the relatives of the cases mentioned by the ministry will object to official reports," the NCHR's Nasser Amin told Daily News Egypt on Saturday.

Enforced disappearances have been of particular concern in Egypt, as Cairo officials have been accused of causing hundreds of people to "vanish", according to local and international human rights organisations.

The Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence recorded 464 cases of enforced disappearance in 2015 alone.

In October, Salah Fouad, the interior minister's assistant for human rights, denied the existence of any cases of involuntary or enforced disappearances.

But in December, the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF) issued a report documenting 340 cases of enforced disappearance in Egypt between August and November 2015, with an average of three cases each and every day.

Regarding complaints about claims of enforced disappearances, the interior ministry said that 99 cases were held in various detention facilities pending legal cases - NCHR

According to testimonies collected by the Cairo-based human rights organisation, victims were subjected to a variety of torture and abuse during their disappearance.

The ECRF report said that the fates of some who disappeared following the 30 June protests in 2015 remain unknown.

In June 2015, Human Rights Watch issued a report highlighting the issue of enforced disappearances in Egypt, calling on the authorities to "immediately disclose" the whereabouts of the forcibly disappeared and to "hold those responsible to account".

"The authorities should either release anyone illegally detained or charge the person with a recognisable crime," the report added.

The United Nations defines enforced disappearance as "the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the state or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorisation, support or acquiescence of the state, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law".