MEXICO CITY — The goal, say Mexican authorities, was to bring clarity to one of the nation’s most explosive questions: What happened to the more than 130,000 people officially listed as “disappeared”?
Their faces are pasted on walls and lampposts across Mexico, and demonstrators regularly hoist banners demanding the return of loved ones whose names are memorialized in chants.
Now, a yearlong government study has sparked a contentious new round of debate about the disappeared.
The review concludes that the 130,000 number is highly inflated and includes tens of thousands who may be alive — or ended up on the list without having been properly identified in the first place.
Other names are probably duplicates, the government says, while some people may have gone off the grid voluntarily for personal reasons.
Human rights activists and relatives of the missing quickly denounced the report as a cover-up — the latest attempt to “disappear the disappeared.”
“This report is a farce, a joke,” said Raúl Servín, part of a citizens group that searches for the missing in the western state of Jalisco, which regularly ranks near the top in disappearances. “The government doesn’t like people talking about the disappeared — but they can’t hide it.”
While not disputing errors in the data, many critics say the actual number of disappeared is probably much higher than 130,000. Organized crime exercises de facto control over vast swaths of the country, where the discovery of clandestine graves is commonplace, and thousands of corpses remain unidentified in morgues and public cemeteries.
The majority of disappeared persons were reported missing since 2006, when the government launched its “war” against narco-traffickers, ushering in the most violent period in recent Mexican history.
The official numbers of the desaparecidos have more than doubled since 2018. But advocates say some people probably fear reporting disappearances to authorities who may themselves be on organized crime payrolls.
The new findings break the 130,000 cases into three major groups:
Genuine disappearances: In one-third of the cases, 43,128, identities appear to check out, and there is no record of activity after they were reported missing. However, only 3,869 (about 9%) of that group were under investigation — a fact that, critics say, highlights prosecutors’ reluctance to confront cartels.
Possibly alive: About 31% have shown activity on government data bases — such as tax, voting and marriage filings — after they were reported missing. That suggests they may still be alive, or were alive for some period beyond their reported absences. Authorities were able to track down 5,269 people in this category and switch their names to the “found” column.
Incomplete cases: Some 36% (46,742) lack vital information, such as complete names and dates of birth, and cannot be meaningfully investigated, authorities said.
Overall, 78% of the disappeared are men between the ages of 30 and 59, Marcela Figueroa, a Mexican security official, told reporters. The remaining 22% are mostly young women, between 18 and 29 years old.
Authorities speculate that some people listed as disappeared may have deliberately dropped out of sight, perhaps abandoning their families or joining organized crime.
The new findings were unveiled March 27 against a politically charged backdrop. Activists have long accused the government of downplaying the issue. Former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose term featured record numbers of disappearances and homicides, complained that political adversaries were exaggerating the problem to smear his reputation and legacy.
On Thursday, a United Nations committee concluded that Mexico’s disappearance crisis constituted “crimes against humanity” and took what it called the “exceptional step” of forwarding the matter to the General Assembly.
The U.N.’s main forum was asked to provide technical, financial and other aid to Mexico in a bid to create “an effective mechanism to uncover the truth and to provide assistance and protection to families, organizations and defenders searching for the disappeared.”
The Mexican foreign ministry quickly rejected the U.N. action, saying the government doesn’t “tolerate, permit or order forced disappearances.”
Indeed, most disappearances originate with kidnappings by organized crime. But investigators have often linked police, soldiers and other official actors to disappearances in a nation where, critics say, authorities often act in cahoots with organized crime — most sensationally in the 2014 disappearance of 43 teacher trainees from the town of Ayotzinapa in the western state of Guerrero.
Only a few charred remains were ever found. The Ayotzinapa case remains largely unresolved, a potent illustration, activists say, of official impunity regarding the disappeared.
Any public discussion of violence is sensitive in Mexico, where, polls show, citizens call security their most pressing concern. President Claudia Sheinbaum has boasted of reductions of 30% or more in homicides and other serious crimes since she took office 18 months ago.
Security is an especially delicate topic now, as Mexico gears up to host World Cup matches in June and July. Mexican officials have argued vehemently that the country would be secure for the multi-city soccer extravaganza.
Such assurances provide little comfort to the relatives, friends and colleagues of those forcibly vanished.
“The government does nothing and leaves it to us civilians to find our missing people,” said Virginia Garay Cazares, who founded a search group in the Pacific Coast state of Nayarit, a hub for organized crime.
Her son, Brian Arias Garay, went missing on Feb. 6, 2018, en route to his job as a vendor at a hot dog and hamburger stand. He was 19.
Like others, Garay said she feared the government would use the new study to ignore cases like those of her son.
“The authorities cannot just throw out names now because of these findings,” Garay said. “They need to go through the lists one by one and look for everyone who is disappeared.”
Sheinbaum has vowed to not purge people from the registry.
“Our obligation is to continue looking for everyone, for every person,” Sheinbaum said last week. “And, at the same time, to eradicate this crime. There should be no more disappeared in Mexico.”
All agree. But the new study’s “premise that the majority of disappearances are voluntary absences minimizes the responsibility of the state,” concluded the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Center for Human Rights.
Government inaction is behind the proliferation in recent years of volunteer search “collectives,” many composed of relatives of the missing.
The volunteers search for hidden graves and typically dig with basic tools and their bare hands; they also stage high-profile demonstrations and have emerged as a critical component of Mexican civil society.
However, the searchers also run risks. Gangs have warned them to back off. At least 35 searchers have been slain in Mexico since 2010, according to Article 19, a rights group.
The most recent victim was Cecilia García Ramblas, who became a searcher in 2021 when her brother went missing in the family’s home state of Guanajato, where gang wars have transformed the state into Mexico’s murder capital.
García Ramblas was kidnapped last month and later found dead, prosecutors said. She was 28.
Sánchez Vidal is a special correspondent.
