{"id":8235,"date":"2023-08-31T11:12:25","date_gmt":"2023-08-31T15:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=8235"},"modified":"2023-08-31T11:12:25","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T15:12:25","slug":"mexican-mothers-mark-day-of-the-disappeared-with-protest-and-demands-for-the-government-to-do-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=8235","title":{"rendered":"Mexican Mothers Mark Day of the Disappeared with Protest and Demands for the Government to Do More"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

 Mothers of some of 111,000 people who have disappeared in Mexico over decades of violence on Wednesday marked the International Day of the Disappeared with protests and demands that the government do more to locate their loved ones.<\/p>\n

Most of those missing are believed to have been abducted by drug cartels or kidnappers, and their bodies buried in shallow graves or burned.<\/p>\n

Some marching down Mexico City\u2019s main boulevard were also protesting an apparent government effort to minimize the problem.<\/p>\n

About 200 protesters \u2014 almost all women \u2014 chanted: \u201cWhere are they? Where are our Children?\u201d<\/p>\n

Edith P\u00e9rez Rodr\u00edguez, one of the marchers, wore a T-shirt with photos of her two sons, Alexis and Jos\u00e9 Arturo Dom\u00ednguez P\u00e9rez. They vanished without a trace a decade ago in the northern state of San Luis Potosi.<\/p>\n

Lack of funding and manpower have left police and prosecutors unable to conduct even the most basic searches \u2014 leaving it to volunteer groups made up of mothers<\/a><\/span>, who often walk through suspected body dumping grounds with shovels, plunging long steel rods into the earth to detect the odor of cadavers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t search for our children, nobody will do it,\u201d said P\u00e9rez Rodr\u00edguez.<\/p>\n

President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador has claimed the number of missing has been inflated and that many may have returned home and not bothered to notify authorities. He has launched a massive door-to-door effort by military and unqualified civilian personnel asking residents whether their missing relatives have returned, and checking their names against vaccination rolls.<\/p>\n

Activists say that money and effort could be better spent looking for the missing, or at least their remains.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are they going to do,\u201d said P\u00e9rez Rodr\u00edguez, noting that each agent has to handle about 250 missing persons cases, leaving them no time to really investigate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is why we are here,\u201d she said, \u201cto tell the president these numbers are not inflated. This is the reality,\u201d she said, pointing to dozens of other protesting mothers.<\/p>\n

Similar marches were held in several other cities in Mexico.<\/p>\n

Irma Guerrero has been looking for her son, David, who disappeared in San Luis Potosi on Jan. 13, 2022. Since then, she said she has received \u201cnothing, not from anyone\u201d in the way of help.<\/p>\n

Asked about the resignation of Mexico\u2019s top search official<\/a><\/span>, Karla Quintana, last week, Guerrero said she did not care. \u201cNone of the officials have helped us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly the bad guys know, and they don\u2019t help us,\u201d Guerrero said.<\/p>\n

Quintana, who did not explain the motives for her resignation, reportedly objected to sending unqualified personnel around to interview victims\u2019 families. Such questioning of already-traumatized families could be damaging, activists say.<\/p>\n

Few doubt there may be people listed as missing who have returned home. But many also believe that a similarly large number of missing people in Mexico\u2019s most violent regions may never have been reported by their relatives, either because of fear of reprisals or distrust of authorities.<\/p>\n

That distrust is widespread.<\/p>\n

Jessica Martinez Cervantes is still looking for her brother Esteban, who also went missing in San Luis Potosi in July 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing, absolutely nothing,\u201d she said when asked what help she has received from the government.<\/p>\n

– Mark Stevenson, AP News<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 Mothers of some of 111,000 people who have disappeared in Mexico over decades of violence on Wednesday marked the International Day of the Disappeared with protests and demands that the government do more to locate their loved ones. Most of those missing are believed to have been abducted by drug cartels or kidnappers, and their…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":8238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dims.apnews.com\/dims4\/default\/a30430d\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/8428x5619+0+0\/resize\/1440x960!\/format\/webp\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2F39%2F84%2Fafa76d1a84f9b55e3f97686fd271%2F1f5709dcad37447ea90e7888d936a1a4","fifu_image_alt":"Mexican Mothers Mark Day of the Disappeared with Protest and Demands for the Government to Do More","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polity-governance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8235"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8237,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8235\/revisions\/8237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}