Zacatecas: 2,139 Missing Citizens And Unaccounted For

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

Collectives of relatives of disappeared persons in Zacatecas joined the protests that began in different parts of the country for the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. They complained about the thousands of victims in Mexico and remembered those who have lost their lives in search of their own.

After a collection of clothes, the garments were used this Saturday to form the phrase "Where are they? + 90 thousand" on the esplanade of the Plaza de Armas, in the state capital. The claim is for the lack of solutions to a problem that in the entity has registered an accelerated increase, among the wave of violence that is suffered.

In Zacatecas, the National Registry of Missing and Unlocated Persons (Rnpdno) counts 2,139 victims from 1964 to date; of that total, 521 were reported in 2021, so this year the total registered last year was already exceeded, when there were 334.

The Zacatecan and Zacatecan collectives for Peace; Families United in Search of Hope and Love, Hope and Struggle, as well as the Citizen Council of the State Search Mechanism, participated in this activity mirroring those that were carried out in different states of the country.

The objective, they specified, was to remind society and authorities that there are more than 90,000 missing people throughout Mexico. The demonstration was also considered a tribute to the members of the search collectives who have lost their lives without having found their loved ones, their children, husbands, parents, brothers and friends.

In July, the murder of José Nicanor Araiza went nationwide; the man, father of a young man who disappeared in 2018 in Villa de Cos, was deprived of liberty and later found dead on a dirt road in Concepción del Oro.

Another pending is the forensic crisis. This Monday, the Extraordinary Identification Mechanism will be presented at the Ministry of the Interior (Segob), after the Movement for Our Disappeared in Mexico revealed that there are more than 50,000 unidentified bodies in the country.

It is hoped that the new instrument will support finding victims. Ricardo Bermeo Padilla, representative of the groups that search for disappeared persons in Zacatecas, said that there are several demands they have for the authorities.

"Requirements that we will develop in later days, since throughout the year we have already raised some in the state search mechanism and other spaces," the activist said.

Bermeo Padilla pointed out that one of the objectives of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, which is commemorated every August 30, is to seek answers to combat this crime, decrease the number of unidentified bodies and work on policies against the increase of these individuals, as well as on prevention.

NTR Zacatecas