These Graphics Will Show You Why Mexicans Are Saying They've Had Enough Ioan Grillo and Simran Khosla - GlobalPost
go to original December 6, 2014

The disappearance of 43 Mexican students after they were abducted by corrupt police working with drug cartel gunmen shocked the world for the scale and severity of the crime. But the atrocity is only one part of a much larger tragedy of people going missing in Mexico.

Since 2006, when then President Felipe Calderon launched a military offensive against drug cartels, more than 22,000 people across the country have disappeared, creating a veritable humanitarian catastrophe. The grave problem has continued under President Enrique Peña Nieto, despite his attempt to shift focus from the drug war to economic reforms.

This infographic breaks the crisis down to some key statistics:



The missing can vanish for various reasons. Sometimes, criminal cartels murder victims and dissolve the bodies in acid or bury them in mass graves. In other cases, gangs kidnap victims for ransom but end up disposing of the hostages. In others, cartels have been found to force victims to work for them, sometimes as gunmen, or they use abducted women as sex slaves.

Investigators have found Mexican police officers and soldiers at all levels to have links to cartels. In the case of the 43 teacher trainees who went missing Sept. 26 from the southwestern city of Iguala, prosecutors say local police, gangsters and even the town’s mayor were involved.

Those 43 students were among 107 people who've gone missing in 2014 in the southern state of Guerrero. This heatmap shows which of Mexico's 31 states have suffered the most kidnappings.


 
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