Death and Resurrection in Mexico: The Shame of Letting People Disappear Clement Detry - Television del Sur
go to original February 12, 2017

A paper butterfly lies on a coffin (Reuters)

This could have happened to the Buendía family in “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, the masterpiece of magical realism by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Ernesto Manjarez was dead, or so his family believed. The young man had jumped on a bus that links El Quelite, about 25 miles north from the sea resort of Mazatlan, to the state capital Culiacan. He said he was going to his girlfriend's but didn’t come back, neither this day nor the following, remaining unreachable and unfindable under the dazzling blue sky of the Mexican Pacific coast.

In a forensic medical facility of Culiacan, his sister Janet Manjarez recognizes the body that is handed over to her. “Not only the face, but even the ulcers on his stomach and feet: everything on that body was like him”, Janet told Telesur Yucatán and local newspaper Diario Noroeste. Ernesto's two brothers and mother are as positive as Janet when it is their turn to see the body: it is him.

The funeral of whoever was supposed to be Ernesto was organized in El Quelite. However, after only two days of mourning, Janet receives a call by Ernesto saying that he is “okay.”

Janet doesn't believe it. It must have been his murderers recording him.

Several months later, Ernesto calls again.

“But Ernesto, we buried you, so how could it be you!?”

Janet recognizes Ernesto’s voice and sense of humor but still doesn't buy it. Until Ernesto sends pictures of him in the U.S., where he had been working a few months after crossing the border illegally, in order help his family make ends meet.

The exhumation is not the end of the process, as judicial authorities are now compelled to identify the DNA of the body.

Read the rest at Television del Sur

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