Sonora: Ceci Flores Pleads With Caro Quintero And The Los Salazares Cartel

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

In the name of the mothers looking for their children without rest, I respectfully address the heads of the cartels operating in the state of Sonora.

Video translation is as follows:

My name is Ceci Patricia Flores Armenta. I am a president of a collective search group for mothers searching in Sonora. I have two missing children. Alejandro Guadalupe disappeared on October 30, 2015 in Los Mochis, Sinaloa.

Marco Antonio disappeared on May 4, 2019 in Bahia de Kino, Sonora. I had to form this group after seeing the insignificant importance that the authorities had given in the search for my son. The need was so great that I had to bring my son home again.

This is what prompted me to go out into the fields with a pick and shovel to find my son. And on the way there I found so many missing. Whereby I struggled so much, I came across so many people on the road, my collective and I have found so many on our path.

I’ve been threatened, and I’ve been displaced in the state of Sonora that is protected by a mechanism that safeguards journalists and human rights defenders. After forcing me out of Sonora, they tied my feet and hands and they took away the possibility of me searching for my son and all the disappeared. 

I need to keep looking for my children. For this reason I find myself in this need to ask you, the heads of the Sonora cartels, Salazar and Caro Quintero and the other cartel leaders. Don’t kill us, don’t disappear us, don’t threaten us, please allow us to keep looking for our children.

We’re not seeking guilty parties, we’re not looking for justice, the only thing we want is to bring them back home. We have the need to bring them back because good or guilty or innocents for us is our whole life. On my path I’ve found many mothers who suffer the absence of their children just like me. In addition we have the need to continue fighting. I need to go back to my state.

I need to return to my family. I need to go back to my house. And look for my son and all the disappeared. Please, we ask, I beg you, I beg you in the name of all the mothers to you head of the cartel who kills and disappears citizens. That you don’t take away the possibility of us finding our missing.

I ask that you help us find them by allowing us to look for them. We have a need to bring them back home. We’re not looking for guilty parties, we’re not seeking justice, we’re only looking for peace. The peace that one day left altogether with them.

Ceci Flores