UN evaluates the crisis of disappeared in Mexico, which reaches 94,000 cases

A commission of United Nations He began a visit to Mexico on Monday to evaluate the work of the authorities against the forced disappearance of citizens, which the government recognizes as a “humanitarian crisis” that now totals more than 94,000 cases.

The presence in the country of Committee against Enforced Disappearance (CED, for its acronym in English) “shows the will of the Mexican State (…) open the doors to that scrutiny“, said the head of the delegation, Carmen Rosa Villa.

In a ceremony with government officials, Villa stressed that it is a “historic visit”, being the first of its kind that the CED has made to a country since its creation 11 years ago. The commission had been requesting a visit to Mexico since 2013.

According to official figures, the country registers more than 94,000 missing persons. Of these, some 76,000 since 2006, when the government launched a questionable military anti-drug operation.

Since then, there have also been some 300,000 murders, attributed mainly to drug cartels and other organized crime gangs.

Villa reported that the commissioners will visit 12 states and meet with federal and local authorities to “identify means” that will help “prevent and fight impunity for disappearances.”

They will also participate in exhumations carried out by judicial officials and relatives of victims.

The visit will conclude on November 26 and the commission will present a report next March to the plenary session of the CED.

In the same act, the undersecretary of Human Rights of Mexico, Alejandro Encinas, guaranteed the cooperation of the government of the leftist president Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Encinas recalled that since coming to power in 2018, López Obrador recognized the disappearances as part of “the humanitarian and human rights crisis” that affects the country.

“We are fully open to international scrutiny,” said the official, underlining that this situation is the “most painful legacy that the government is facing.”

Encinas explained that after the so-called “dirty war”, as the violence exercised by state agents against political opponents between 1965 and 1980 is known, the fight against drugs unleashed the phenomenon of “disappearance between individuals, linked to the corruption of the police forces. linked to organized crime “.