Outcry as Mexico reduces number of disappeared
23 December 2023
Activists say the review of 113,000 missing people in Mexico is a ploy to reduce the number ahead of the presidential election
The government has now announced it was able to confirm just 12,377 of the more than 113,000 cases of disappeared people.
The registry had become intensely politicised, with the rising number of disappeared a symbol of the continuing insecurity across the country, while the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said that it was being inflated to attack the government.
Violence in Mexico soared with the launch of the militarised “war on drugs” in 2006, and it has remained stubbornly high throughout the term of López Obrador, popularly known as Amlo, which began in 2018.
That same year, the National Search Commission was established to look for disappeared people, working with local commissions and prosecutor’s offices in each state, and regularly publishing the accumulating number of cases in its registry.
Amlo promised a change in security strategy, but has failed to deliver improvements, and the ever-climbing number of disappeared – along with the number of homicides, which in 2022 topped 30,000 for the fifth year in a row – have been a frequent line of attack on his government.
In June, Amlo announced a “census” to review the official total of disappearances, case by case.
Karla Quintana, who had led the National Search Commission since 2019, resigned shortly after that announcement. “Their intention is very clear and it is regrettable: it is to reduce the number of disappeared people, mainly during this government,” said Quintana soon afterwards.
Quintana was replaced by Teresa Guadalupe Reyes Sahagún, who before that had been the general director of the National Institute for Adult Education.
The UN’s human rights office in Mexico criticised the process by which Reyes was appointed, citing a lack of consultation, transparency and scrutiny.
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https://www.tamilguardian.com/content/outcry-mexico-reduces-number-disappeared