On Monday, authorities reported more than 100,000 people within the National Registry of Missing and Missing Persons (RNDPDNO), placing Jalisco, Tamaulipas and the State of Mexico as the entities with the most cases.
According to the registry, of the total of 245 thousand 526 people who have been reported, about 60% have been located, and details that 100 thousand 8 people (40.73%) remain missing or not located.
While of the people located, 135,604 (93.19%) were found alive, in 9,914 cases (6.81%) they died.
Given the increase in cases in the official registry, groups of relatives of victims and civil organizations that make up the Movement for Our Disappeared in Mexico expressed their concern about the underreporting of cases, as well as the lack of public policies in searches with life, as well as in the identification of bodies.
Although the families know with certainty that this figure (100 thousand) is well below the number of cases that we see and live every day in our contexts, the number reached is still alarming, and we demand that this crisis be addressed in a comprehensive and immediate way in proportion to this heartbreaking number of disappeared people, ” said the move in a statement.
Read more | UN Committee against Disappearances Calls on Mexico to Abandon Militarization of Public Security
The movement called on the federal government to heed the recommendations of the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances and to convene a working group with institutions, families and accompanying organizations to establish a work plan.
Among the measures highlighted by the groups and relatives of the disappeared is the urgent and effective search for all disappeared persons, under a differentiated approach that considers and contemplates migrants, women, and children and adolescents.
They also highlighted the omissions of the state prosecutor’s offices, as well as the Attorney General’s Office (FGR), who demand to assume their responsibilities “fully in terms of search and investigation, and work concertably and firmly with the families and other authorities to advance in the truth and justice that they owe us.”
They also call for the creation of databases, provided for by the General Law on Disappearances, to be carried out with the full participation of families, the National Forensic Data Bank and the National Registry of Common and Clandestine Graves, since they consider that without this adaptation, the search and identification of relatives remains disjointed and partial.
They even demand that the State guarantee their protection, in the midst of a climate of threats, violence and criminalization towards human rights defenders, including search engines.
“Linked to the disappearance crisis, we must not overlook the forensic crisis that we have also reported on several occasions. In August 2021, we reported more than 52,000 unidentified people. We urge the FGR and local prosecutors’ offices to collaborate with the newly created Extraordinary Forensic Identification Mechanism (MEIF) to end the forensic identification backlog; as well as promoting the budgetary and institutional strengthening of the latter and of the ordinary forensic services,” they said in a statement.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is asked to make “an even more determined effort on his part” to prioritize this agenda.
“Mr. President, make this agenda a decided priority of your government, do not delegate it, instruct all authorities to work in this direction and to do it hand in hand with the families in a sensitive and committed way,” they asked.
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