Families of Mexico's 'Other Disappeared' Demand More in Search for Loved Ones Clayton Conn - teleSUR
go to original March 28, 2015

In Mexico, people aren't searching just for the kidnapped Ayotzinapa students. Mario Vergara shows AJ+ how the Committee of Families of Victims of Enforced Disappearances of Iguala is scouring the region for family and friends – like his brother Tomas, who was last seen in 2012. The UN estimates that more than 23,000 have gone missing in recent years. From video journalists Alba Tobella, Sara Pedrola and Pepe Jiménez in Mexico. (AJ+)

On Friday outside the primary offices of Mexico’s Executive Commission of Attention to Victims (CEAV), a group of families and relatives of some of the country’s disappeared and murdered protested, decrying mistreatment and lack of attention by the federal institution. The nearly 100 individuals from the violence stricken states of Mexico, Veracruz, Guerrero, among others, arrived hoping to be attended by commissioners, but found the offices closed on the work day.

Holding images of their missing or killed loved ones they held a small rally outside of the offices, declaring that they have faced “humiliation and re-victimization” by the organization that was founded to attend to the various needs of the families of Mexico’s so-called drug war violence.

In a communiqué read aloud they argued that the institute has failed to show the “political will” to produce concrete results in the search of Mexico’s estimated 23,000 missing or attaining justice in cases of murder, which some estimate to be beyond 100,000 since 2006.

“We all know that we are not well, emotionally, and in our heads and if this commission was formed to give us attention, why do they turn us away and send us to other offices where we become re-victimized and have to do more paper work,” said Lourdes Morales.

Read the rest at teleSUR

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