Mexico is the champion of disappearances, mothers protest at World Cup

Mothers of the disappeared arrived in Mexico City, their faces emblazoned on banners, to confront the nation's ongoing crisis. Outside the Estadio Ciudad de México, a police cordon blocked their path, but their message resonated: Mexico is experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe due to widespread disappearances.

Socorro Gil Guzmán, whose son Jhonatan Guadalupe Romero Gil vanished, traveled over nine hours from Acapulco. She joined other mothers from the "Memoria, Verdad y Justicia" collective, including Olga Lidia Mendoza Chávez, searching for her son for 15 years, and Xóchitl Osmayda Leal Saligán, seeking her son Édgar Yair Leal Saligán. Brenda Huerta Albarrán and Liliana Carrera Castro also joined the protest, demanding answers for their missing loved ones.

Gil Guzmán emphasized that disappearances in Mexico are not isolated incidents but systematic. She specifically accused municipal police of her son's disappearance on December 5, 2018. "This government is denying disappearances. It doesn't want to hear us," she stated, accusing officials of manipulating official figures. "It doesn't want to accept there are forced disappearances when the proof is my son, who was disappeared by municipal police."

The World Cup, a global spectacle, holds a painful irony for Gil Guzmán, as football was her son Jhonatan's passion. She recalled telling him he would be a footballer even before he was born, and how he loved balls from infancy. Despite a skull fracture at age 11 that prohibited playing, his passion for the sport remained.