More Underage Youths And Students Go Missing In Jalisco. Jalisco Is The 1st Place Nationally As The State With The Most Missing Persons In Mexico

 "Char" for Borderland Beat

This article was translated and reposted from INFORMADOR.MX 

AUGUST 25, 2024

WRITTEN BY: INFORMADOR.MX 

Aldo Gonzalez's parents at the demonstration. 

Aldo Gonzalez disappeared on April 13, more than four months ago, after he was last seen when he left his home to travel to the municipality of Tepatitlan. Since then, the whereabouts of the young student of the University Center of Health Sciences (CUCS) of the University of Guadalajara have not been known.

In total, 28 members of the UdeG have been reported missing and are still unaccounted for, confirmed the university, most of them students. 

One more student who was reported missing is a young man from the Tonalá Norte High School, Christian Alan Olvera, last seen on August 12 in that municipality. 

Others were located, for example, Gianina Michelle Juárez Vásquez, 16 years old and a student of high school 11 located in the Metropolitan Zone of Guadalajara, who was found alive on May 20; cousins Janetzy Medina and Kevin Ulises Sánchez were also found alive. 

However, UdeG is not the only institution affected by the disappearance of members of its university community; on May 3, the disappearance of Fernanda Cano, a student of ITESO, who was allegedly taken from her freedom in the Bugambilias area, was reported; fortunately, she was found alive on May 9. 

In addition to Fernanda, ITESO had another student reported missing, although in 2023 and, like Fernanda, the young man was found alive. 

The search collective Luz de Esperanza confirmed that among its members, there are relatives of a student from Universidad América Latina campus Patria, named Sergio Oliver Israel Díaz, who remains missing since July 11, 2012, almost 12 years ago.

UNIVA also reported that they have had cases of disappearance, but that all their students were found alive. 

Several of the missing students are underage, a population group that has been affected by this phenomenon: according to official figures from the State Registry of Missing Persons, in Jalisco there are more than 1,200 underage children under the age of 19 who were reported missing out of a total of more than 6,200 complaints filed. 

In the previous state administration, the report was 606 according to the national registry on the matter, that is to say, during the current state administration, the number of minors who are still unaccounted for has doubled.

“Fight until you find him”.

Dozens of people gathered outside Casa Jalisco to demand that authorities locate Aldo González Sevilla, a student at the University Center for Health Sciences (CUCS) of the University of Guadalajara (UdeG), who was last seen on April 13.

“There are no results. The Prosecutor's Office is working, they inform me that they are continuously carrying out operations, but it is already four months and 11 days since Aldo's disappearance. We want to ask the Government to support the Prosecutor's Office with more personnel, or more technology. I don't know what they need, but we do want the governor's support”, explained Israel Gonzalez, father of the young man.

Around 12:00 noon yesterday, the demonstration began on Manuel Acuña Street, with signs and posters demanding the authorities to be effective in locating Aldo.

So far the Prosecutor's Office does not have any theory nor has it presented any progress in the case, the boy's parents indicated.

“I have two other children, they are the ones who help me, and my husband, he is the one who has helped me a lot to get ahead. Aldo is a child dedicated to study, few friends, he is not a fighter, he is a sportsman. He is a good son. Don't forget him, fight until you find him. We have to find all our children, it is not fair that they are lost just like that,” added Leticia Sevilla, the young man's mother, on the verge of tears.

Aldo Gonzalez is a second semester student of the career Superior Technician in Dental Prosthesis.

On April 13 he was supposed to board a bus to go to Tepatitlán, where he is from, to visit his parents, however, according to the State Prosecutor's Office, the boy never arrived at the terminal. According to the law enforcement agency, Aldo disappeared in the Independencia neighborhood, in Guadalajara.

“We are here outside the governor's house, Casa Jalisco, to demand that the authorities not get tired and not stop looking for our compañero Aldo, because he has not been in the classroom for four months. Aldo, a student from Tepatitlán, who comes to the Metropolitan Zone in search of his dreams, in search of improving his life; and we cannot tolerate that after so many weeks, so many days, he is still not with his family. Aldo, like other students, still has not arrived home, still has not returned home,” commented Zoé García, president of the Federation of University Students.

Montalberti Serrano, UdeG's Security Coordinator, assured that, to date, there are 28 people missing from the university, including teachers, students and workers. In addition, eight of them have been found dead.

“To think that one of my children disappears is a nightmare, but we are a family that has faith in God and we know that my son will arrive,” concluded Mr. Israel.

BACKGROUND

“Max”, a victim of forced disappearance

In recent days, the search collective, Luz de Esperanza, announced the amparo sentence granted by a judge in which it was determined that the disappearance of Carlos Maximiliano Romero Meza, son of Liliana Meza and student of the University of Guadalajara, was an enforced disappearance.

On April 17, the Seventh District Court in Puente Grande ruled that there was participation and/or consent of State agents in the disappearance of Maximiliano when the young man was taken from his home, located in the La Tuzania neighborhood, in Zapopan, in 2020. 

Carlos Maximiliano was only 18 years old at the time of the disappearance. He was studying at the time the second semester of the Bachelor's Degree in Graphic Design at the University Center of Art, Architecture and Design (CUAAD) of the University of Guadalajara.

“In Luz de Esperanza we received this sentence with a mixture of joy, sadness and hope in itself, being a milestone in our various legal processes in process, in which we seek hard that, first, the forced disappearance is recognized by the authorities in certain cases, given the constant denial, and denial of this situation, and to achieve progress in investigations. And secondly, that the necessary and optimal actions are taken to find our loved ones, and that we have access to the right to truth and justice,” the collective noted in a statement.

Liliana Meza, mother of the young man and leader of the search collective, hopes that the resolution will set a precedent for the investigations of forced disappearances in Jalisco. 

She hopes that “Max's case will be a precedent of a before and after with an enforced disappearance, because now there will be those who can be recognized and can really move forward”. 

Number of missing persons

Jalisco has the 1st place nationally as the State with the most missing persons in Mexico, according to the latest cut, issued on July 31, by the State Registry of Missing Persons, a platform enabled by the State Government.

6 thousand 200 complaints filed for disappearance in the State of Mexico.

15,103 people are missing in Jalisco.

1,252 underage persons under the age of 19 remain unaccounted for in our State at the present time. 

28 students and members of the community of the University of Guadalajara remain reported missing and are still unaccounted for. 

4 months since the disappearance of Aldo Gonzalez Sevilla, a student of the University Center of Health Sciences of the University of Guadalajara.

SOURCE: INFOMADOR.MX