August 30, 2023
August 30th, a day that rekindles the pain of mothers, daughters, sons, and other family members of the disappeared.
Across the country, marches are held by families and groups of families of victims of forced disappearance—all victims, of course, due to the actions or inactions of state institutions. These marches and lamentations fail to move the three levels of government, despite the fact that the number of victims nationwide now exceeds one hundred and eleven thousand. In different municipalities of Guerrero, there are also marches, photo exhibitions, and various activities seeking to raise awareness and awareness that we are all potential victims of the disappearance of a family member. These activities are also a way to combat the mockery and re-victimization of both the disappeared and their families practiced by society and the authorities.
In Chilpancingo, the mobilization is demanding the approval of the Law on Disappeared Persons and the creation of a Human Identification Center, as well as the autonomy of the State Search Commission. All three have their own financial, human, and material resources, demands that all human rights groups and civil society organizations agree on.
According to official figures from the National Registry of Missing and Unlocated Persons published by the newspaper El Sur, there are 4,136 victims in Guerrero. So far in 2023, 212 more have disappeared in Guerrero.
Chilapa, an Indigenous municipality, predominantly Nahuatl-speaking, has 273 missing persons (a highly questionable figure). On the other hand, the official figures published by El Sur show the humanitarian crisis we are experiencing in the state. We must ask ourselves: How many families do not report the disappearance of their family member out of fear? How many missing people have remained anonymous?
There are many historical and current debts that still grieve, such as the missing from the decades of intense counterinsurgency warfare in the municipalities on both coasts, and the victims of the current counterinsurgency strategy, which includes our 43 colleagues from the Ayotzinapa Normal School, who disappeared on September 26 and 27, 2024, and whose disappearances have not been clarified due to the army’s cover-up.
In Chilapa, approximately 35 wives, mothers, children, members of the Chilapa Victims Collective and Indigenous Peoples, accompanied by members of the José Ma. Morelos y Pavón Regional Center for the Defense of Human Rights, laid a wreath and held a photographic exhibition of their missing relatives in the main square. This was a sign that they were still present, and they hoped to find them, alive or dead, and have the consolation of knowing what happened to them. Meanwhile, to the extent possible, they joined the demand for:
- Search and location of their missing relatives.
- The approval of the Law on the Disappearance of Persons, autonomous and with its own economic, human, and material resources.
- The creation of a Human Identification Center in Chilpancingo with its own economic, human, and material resources.
- A budget, human and material resources, and autonomy for the State Search Commission.
Sincerely
Teodomira Rosales Sierra
Director of the Morelos Center