Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets across Mexico this weekend to demand justice for the more than 130,000 people officially reported missing in the country. From Mexico City to Guadalajara, Córdoba, Oaxaca, Sonora, and Durango, relatives of the disappeared, alongside human rights activists, rallied against what the United Nations has described as “a human tragedy of enormous proportions.”
The scale of Mexico’s crisis has grown rapidly since 2007, when then-President Felipe Calderón launched the so-called “war on drugs.” While drug cartels and organized crime groups are believed to be the primary perpetrators often forcibly recruiting people or killing them for resisting security forces have also been implicated in enforced disappearances.
Protesters carried placards bearing the faces of their loved ones, calling on President Claudia Sheinbaum’s government to do more to address the tragedy. In Mexico City, the march clogged the capital’s main thoroughfares, bringing traffic to a standstill.
For many families, hope has long rested on grassroots search groups known as buscadores. These volunteers, often mothers of the missing, scour remote countryside and deserts, guided by rumors, anonymous tips, or even information provided by cartels. The work, however, comes with immense danger. Following the discovery of a suspected narco-ranch in Jalisco state earlier this year, several buscadores involved in the search themselves disappeared.
The Attorney General’s office later denied evidence of a crematorium at the site, further fueling mistrust between victims’ families and authorities.
The enormity of Mexico’s crisis surpasses some of Latin America’s darkest chapters. Guatemala’s 36-year civil war left around 40,000 disappeared, while Argentina’s military dictatorship in the late 1970s and early 1980s claimed an estimated 30,000. In contrast, Mexico’s toll driven by organized crime, impunity, and weak institutions has climbed to over 130,000 in less than two decades.
As protests ripple nationwide, families of the missing remain caught between grief and determination. Their demand is clear: truth, justice, and accountability for a crisis that has scarred communities across every corner of Mexico.
