Mexican government officials say over 60,000 citizens have disappeared


According to Mexican government officials, approximately 61,637 people have been reported as disappeared and have not been found in Mexico since the 1960s. Although the cases involving disappeared individuals go back for decades, government records indicate that over 97% of the people were reported as missing since 2006. In that year, Mexico’s government initiated a strategy to reduce drug trafficking and criminal enterprises. The current situation in Mexico is one the worst crises of “the disappeared” in Latin American history. Approximately 40,000 people went missing during Guatemala’s 36-year civil war. An estimated 30,000 people disappeared from 1976 to 1983 during Argentina’s “dirty war.”

In 2017, Mexican officials recorded the more than 7,000 cases. In 2019, between 5,000 to 9,000 people disappeared and were not found, according to Mexico’s National Search Commission.

According to officials, there are various reasons for the forced disappearances. In certain cases, narcotics traffickers want to hide evidence of crimes or avoid prosecution. Another factor can be from people who want to instill fear in individuals or in a community. Most of the unsolved disappeared cases are perpetuated by organized crime groups; however, there have been cases where victims have been taken by military officials, corrupt police or corrupt politicians.

One of Mexico’s most infamous disappearance cases involved 43 students near the city of Iguala. In 2014, the group of students were attacked and kidnapped by police officers working for a local drug cartel in southern Mexico. The students were never seen again after local witnesses saw them being escorted away by local police trucks.

Sources:

“A New Toll in Mexico’s Drug War: More Than 61,000 Vanished” by Paulina Villegas, January 6, 2020, The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/06/world/americas/mexico-drug-war-death-toll.html

“More than 60,000 Mexicans have disappeared amid drug war, officials say” by Mary Beth Sheridan, January 6, 2020, The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/more-than-60000-mexicans-have-been-disappeared-amid-drug-war-officials-say/2020/01/06/07a4ea56-24f8-11ea-9cc9-e19cfbc87e51_story.html

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