In 2022, according to the National Registry of Missing and Unlocated Persons of Mexico, the sad and terrifying figure of 100,000 officially disappeared persons was reached in that country.
The figure could rise considering that many disappearances are not reported.
The Woman Post | Maria Claudia Londoño
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Through the Committee against Enforced Disappearances (CED) and the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID), the UN has expressed concern about the high rate of cases, while joining forces to collaborate in the fight against this scourge, which continues to escalate, constituting a regular social problem, difficult to control and eradicate.
They stress the importance of family members being cared for by government authorities, by what is contemplated in the International Convention for Protection against Enforced Disappearances, which constitutes an international human rights instrument. These institutions work to guarantee communication between the respective Member State and its population, to deal with each case of disappearance.
According to official reports, between 2011 and 2021 the number of disappeared went from 5,000 to 95,000.
Faced with impunity and the growing increase, the relatives of the disappeared constitute local and national groups or collectives.
One of them is the “Colectivo Madres Buscadoras de Desaparecidos de Sonora", founded and led by Cecilia Patricia Flores, mother of two disappeared boys.
According to official reports, there are more than 6,000 missing persons in this group alone.
These people have learned to differentiate the characteristics of the terrain to detect graves, which has allowed them to find hundreds of human remains but also living people.
Her life changed on October 30, 2015, when her son Alejandro disappeared in Los Mochis, Sinaloa.
However, the situation worsened on May 4, 2019, when armed men took her two other sons, Marco Antonio and Jesús Adrián, to Bahía Equino, Sonora.
She went out desperate to look for them,and her search lasted for days while she shared posts on social networks, they began to be shared and other people joined the search, that is how the Collective was born.
Five days after her kidnapping, they summoned her to a place away from her, which made her think it was extortion.
Upon arrival, she found Jesús Adrián visibly beaten but alive. When asked about his brother, the boy replied that his captors told them not to look for him because they were not going to find him.
