By Entorno | 2025-05-16

Gedhun Choekyi Nyima is one of the most famous disappeared people in the world.

In 1995, Chinese authorities took him from his home in Tibet when he was just six years old. At the time, he had recently been recognized by the Dalai Lama as the 11th Panchen Lama, the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism. That designation, and the Chinese government's fear of its implications, transformed the young boy into a symbol of political control and religious suppression.

No one has seen him since.

Gedhun vanished on May 17, 1995, three days after the Dalai Lama announced his recognition. Officials detained him and his family in Lhari, a small county in Nagqu, a vast, windswept region in the Tibet Autonomous Region. Thirty years later, his fate remains a mystery.

Human rights organizations, foreign governments and the United Nations have repeatedly demanded his release. The United States, Canada, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, India and Amnesty International have condemned China's refusal to acknowledge his whereabouts or confirm his safety.

Gedhun's case is now one of the longest-standing examples of enforced disappearance in modern history. If he is still alive, he turned 36 on April 25.

Beijing offered its only known statement on his status in 2020, claiming that Gedhun had completed university and secured a job. But Chinese officials have never allowed independent verification, and no one has seen recent photographs or met with him. Beijing has permitted no outside observer to visit.

Tibetans in exile and their supporters have never stopped asking questions. Every year since his abduction, they have held prayer vigils, protest marches and public ceremonies around the world, especially in Dharamsala, India, where the Tibetan government in exile is based.

In 2025, they plan to mark the 30th anniversary with renewed calls for his release, despite Beijing's censorship.

A 2020 report by Jigme Tsering, the Dalai Lama's representative for Latin America, underscored the enduring concern. "International human rights organizations have repeatedly called for Gedhun Choekyi Nyima's release and confirmation of his well-being," Tsering wrote. "Many world governments have issued statements regarding his detention. However, no one has been allowed to visit him."

A sacred birth, a swift disappearance

Gedhun was born in April 1989 to a doctor and nurse in Nagqu, one of the highest inhabited regions in the world, more than 4,500 meters above sea level.

The area, known for its dry winters and rainy summers, sits at the heart of the Qinghai Plateau in northern Tibet. Its population in 1995 was estimated at fewer than 400,000, mostly Tibetan Buddhists with a deep cultural and religious heritage.

In Tibetan Buddhism, the Panchen Lama holds the critical role of identifying the next Dalai Lama. Beijing understood both the power of this tradition and its political risks. The current Dalai Lama fled Tibet after the 1959 Chinese invasion and has since become the spiritual leader of Tibetan exiles and a symbol of resistance to Chinese rule.

The previous Panchen Lama, Choekyi Gyaltsen, died suddenly in January 1989 at age 51. Officials blamed a heart attack. But some sources say he died under suspicious circumstances after criticizing Chinese policies in Tibet. Rumors of poisoning persist.

Chinese leaders feared the next Panchen Lama would inherit that political heft. When the Dalai Lama named Gedhun, they acted quickly, removing him from public view and installing a handpicked replacement. Many now say that Beijing intends to follow the same playbook after the current Dalai Lama dies: install its own spiritual leader and control Tibetan Buddhism from within.

In May 2020, the BBC reported that Chinese authorities had kept Gedhun's location secret for decades. At one point, an official told the South China Morning Post that the boy lived in Gansu province but offered no proof.

Earlier, in 2000, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told Parliament that Chinese officials insisted the boy was safe and healthy and that his parents did not want international interference. They even showed photos of a supposed residence but denied access requests. No one could verify the claim.

To this day, the only confirmed image of Gedhun is a portrait taken in early 1995 by the delegation that searched for the Panchen Lama's reincarnation. It shows a young boy with frostbitten cheeks, unaware of the role he had been chosen to play, or the fate that would follow.