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Families in Mexico City remember their missing relatives with photos and search posters
🇵🇾 Paraguay /Crime & Justice

Families in Mexico City remember their missing relatives with photos and search posters

From ABC Color · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Newswire From a news agency Ongoing story
  • Families and search collectives displayed about 2,300 photographs and search files along Mexico City’s Paseo de la Reforma for the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.
  • The event called for immediate searches, effective investigations, dignified identification and justice amid a national tally of more than 130,000 missing and unlocated people.
  • The mobilization followed new government measures to strengthen searches and identification, while organizers also highlighted risks faced by search activists.

About 2,300 search files bearing photographs and personal details covered the barriers around Mexico City’s Glorieta de las y los Desaparecidos on Sunday. Families and collectives gathered under the slogan “Let’s make them visible” to keep missing people present in public view.

There are many people who still do not approach the issue of disappearance because it is so painful.

— Jorge VerásteguiA family member searching for his brother and nephew explained why the event also used music and cultural activities to encourage solidarity.

The day began with an ecumenical ceremony and continued for 12 hours with artistic, cultural and political activities. Families said the gathering should not be defined only by grief. Jorge Verástegui, who is searching for his brother and nephew, said families are “much more than pain” and that their struggle also contains “hope and love” for their relatives.

Much more than pain

— Jorge VerásteguiHe described how families wanted their public struggle to reflect hope and love as well as grief.

The mobilization took place as Mexico faces more than 130,000 missing and unlocated people. Families have spent years organizing searches in fields, hills, clandestine graves and forensic services, while accusing authorities of failing to do enough. The Movement for Our Disappeared in Mexico demanded that the state move from “managing the crisis to eradicating it,” with prevention, immediate searches, effective investigations, dignified identification and justice.

Managing the crisis to eradicating it

— Movement for Our Disappeared in MexicoThe organization demanded a stronger state response to disappearances.

The organization also warned about the dangers facing searchers after Alma Rosa Rojo Medina, founder of the Voces Unidas por la Vida collective, suffered a shooting attack on Saturday in Culiacán, Sinaloa. Two days earlier, the government of President Claudia Sheinbaum announced new measures, including ensuring that every report leads to an investigation file and expanding searches in hospitals and prisons. Authorities said they had found 40,628 matches between missing-person reports and later procedures or activities, but only 6,939 had so far received a formal location report. Other collectives marched from the Angel of Independence toward the Zócalo, demanding truth, justice and the location of their relatives.

We are not looking for figures. We are looking for people.

— Movement for Our Disappeared in MexicoThe group emphasized that missing-person cases involve individuals, not only statistics.
About this summary

Originally published by ABC Color in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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