Search Brigades Popping Up Across Mexico in Desperate Effort to Find Missing Loved Ones Jan-Albert Hootsen - Fox News Latino
go to original July 11, 2016

Over the years, thousands of people have disappeared in Mexico because of drug-related violence. Families frustrated with a lack of answers are taking matters into their own hands. As Al Jazeera's Natasha Ghoneim reports from Veracruz, some are digging up mass graves to try and find their loved ones. (Al Jazeera)

In small groups, the search brigades scour the countryside hoping to find the remains of those being looked for, unfaltering, by their loved ones over the course of years. They are doing the work that the Mexican government, they say, is either unable or unwilling to do.

Beads of sweat drop from Mario Vergara's forehead as he, very carefully, kneels to examine the small fragment between the small rocks on the ground. To the untrained eye, it may seem like just another little white stone, but Vergara knows better.

“It's a bone fragment,” he said. A faint smile appears on his somewhat gaunt face, covered in the shadow of his sombrero. “Looks human.”

...All in all, Vergara and his team of volunteers found some 20 bone fragments when FNL joined them on their search last week, including pieces of a skull, a pelvis and ribs. It was one of the most successful forensic runs the group has had since they first started looking for clandestine graves in the area in late 2014.

His group was the first of a growing number of citizen collectives that, all across the country, have begun searching for the estimated 27,000 to 40,000 people who have disappeared in Mexico since 2006.

Read the rest at Fox News Latino

Related: 28,000 People Missing in Mexico in the Last Decade: Report (teleSUR)

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!