Thousands of people have held protests across Mexico to highlight the country's many enforced disappearances and demand more action from officials to tackle them.
Relatives and friends of missing persons, alongside human rights activists, marched through the streets of cities such as Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Córdoba, calling for justice and urging the government of President Claudia Sheinbaum to assist in finding their missing loved ones.
More than 130,000 individuals have been reported missing in Mexico, with the vast majority of these cases emerging since 2007, when the government's 'war on drugs' was initiated. Many of those who disappear are believed to have been forcibly recruited by drug cartels or murdered for resisting them.
While drug cartels and organized crime are the primary culprits behind these disappearances, security forces have also faced accusations regarding deaths and enforced disappearances.
The wide reach of the protests—from the southern states like Oaxaca to northern states like Sonora and Durango—illustrated the profound impact of forced disappearances on communities across the nation.
In Mexico City, the march caused significant traffic disruptions as protesters navigated the main thoroughfares. Many families affected by these tragedies have formed search teams known as 'buscadores', who bravely scour remote areas for mass graves based on information, often provided by the cartels.
Recent discoveries in Jalisco state have raised alarms, as a narco-ranch was uncovered by a search group, leading to the disappearance of several involved buscadores. The state's Attorney General later reported no evidence of a crematorium at that site.
The United Nations has characterized this situation as 'a human tragedy of enormous proportions,' and the level of disappearances in Mexico exceeds those seen in some of Latin America’s most tumultuous periods, such as the Guatemalan civil war and Argentina’s military dictatorship.
