Mexico\u2019s National\u00a0Registry\u00a0of\u00a0Missing\u00a0and\u00a0Disappeared\u00a0Persons\u00a0registered\u00a0more than 116,000\u00a0unresolved\u00a0cases\u00a0as\u00a0of\u00a02025, with media reports and human rights experts putting the current number at over 130,000.\u00a0The real figure may be much higher, and the number continues to grow.\u00a0Some of the cases date as far back as 1964.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Participation of public officials<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhile noting that Mexico\u2019s nationwide \u2018war on drugs\u2019 has contributed to the conditions in which such attacks have occurred at the local level, the Committee stressed that it did not find evidence of a federal level policy to commit enforced disappearances,\u201d says the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances in its April 2, 2026, press release<\/a>. But it also said it had received \u201csubstantiated information pointing to the direct participation of public officials, or their authorisation, support, or acquiescence\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Committee has asked the UN Secretary-General to \u201curgently refer the situation of enforced disappearances in Mexico to the UN General Assembly for consideration of measures to support the State Party in preventing, investigating, punishing and eradicating this crime\u201d. This referral is made under the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy own case involves the disappearance of my son, Luis \u00c1ngel Le\u00f3n Rodr\u00edguez, on November 16, 2009, in Zit\u00e1cuaro, Michoac\u00e1n,\u201d says Araceli Rodr\u00edguez, a representative of Colectivo Colibr\u00ed<\/a> which groups relatives of disappeared persons in Mexico. Her son was a federal police officer. He disappeared along with six other officers who were travelling with him and a civilian who was providing security to reach their destination, since the State provided none, she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe issue here is the responsibility of the authorities who sent them on a mission to take over a municipal office in a city without providing them with safe means to reach their destination,\u201d Rodr\u00edguez continues. \u201cWe have searched in clandestine graves, and as searching mothers, we will continue to search, because we have learned to say, \u2018well, if I don\u2019t find my son, I\u2019ll find another woman\u2019s son, and we\u2019ll bring peace to the families\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given the scale of enforced disappearances and the authorities\u2019 perceived slowness and inefficiency<\/a> in investigating them, many victims\u2019 families have formed their own collectives over the years to search by themselves, with all the risks that may entail for their own safety. \u201cYou don\u2019t only have the people who disappear, you also have the people who search for them,\u201d says S\u00e1nchez of Amnesty International. \u201cThey are threatened, they are killed, they are kidnapped and also become part of the disappeared people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t Isabel Cruz is founder and president of Sabuesos Guerreras [Warrior Hounds], another civil society organization searching for missing family members. \u201cI lost my son Reyes Yosimar Garc\u00eda Cruz, who disappeared on January 26, 2017, here in Culiac\u00e1n Sinaloa,\u201d she told Justice Info. \u201cI know many women whose children have also disappeared, and we have formed a collective to search with less danger than if we did so alone. In some cases, like mine, our children were disappeared by members of the police and military.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cruz says she needs to continue the nine-year search for her son because \u201cif I don\u2019t look for him, no one else will\u201d. \u201cThe federal government is doing absolutely nothing,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most perpetrators, according to Amnesty International, are part of organized crime. S\u00e1nchez says that as for the victims, \u201cthey are sometimes taken away to be part of the gangs, or to be part of human trafficking, organ trafficking\u201d. She says they are frequently people with lower incomes in parts of the cities where organized crime is high, but also in the countryside. It is about 60% men, but also women, although the pattern differs according to different regions of Mexico. The highest number of victims are aged 15-40.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum has rejected<\/a> <\/strong>the UN Committee\u2019s assessment that enforced disappearances in the country amount to crimes against humanity. According to Elena Azaola Garrido, an expert on the issue for the Institute for Integrated Transitions<\/a>, the Mexican government is also trying to exert diplomatic pressure on other countries to ensure that the UN General Assembly does not vote for a UN intervention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey don\u2019t want to recognize the problem,\u201d she says. \u201cThey deny it, they say the register is incorrect, that there is not that number of people. But in fact, there are more, because many people feel afraid to go to the authorities, since many times they are responsible for the disappearance. The government says international intervention is an attack on our sovereignty, we are an independent country, and we have the capacity to solve the problem, although at the same time they admit that lack of forensic expertise is a big issue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Azaola Garrido, who authored a report on enforced disappearances in Mexico City<\/a>, thinks the government\u2019s inability to solve the problem stems from both a lack of political will and lack of resources. \u201cThis government, I am sorry to say, lies a lot, and covers itself a lot,\u201d she told Justice Info. She says Karla Quintana, former National Commissioner for the Search of Missing Persons in Mexico, was pushed to resign<\/a> from that post in 2023 because she refused to reduce the numbers of missing on the national register. Quintana<\/a> now heads the UN\u2019s Independent Institution on Missing Persons in Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The UN committee\u2019s assessment that enforced disappearances in Mexico are crimes against humanity is particularly controversial. Crimes against humanity are defined in international law as \u201cacts committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a crime against humanity, the situation could \u2013 at least theoretically \u2013 be taken up by the International Criminal Court (ICC)<\/a>. This, says Azaola Garrido, is one of the reasons why the government is so resistant to that qualification, because it could potentially entail senior political figures being indicted by the ICC. She says some of the groups that have lobbied for the UN Committee to refer the Mexican situation to the UN General Assembly have also been fighting for years to get the ICC in The Hague to take up the Mexican situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe answer they have always received in The Hague is that the court is never going to take Mexico,\u201d she continues, \u201cfirst because it\u2019s a very complex situation: part of the people have been disappeared by government officials, and others by criminal groups. Also, the Mexican government gives money to the court, money to the UN, and these organizations are very political. They have a lot of interests and limitations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But if the General Assembly were to vote assistance to the Mexican government to fight enforced disappearances, would that help? Azaola Garrido thinks UN forensic expertise could be crucial, and the government admits it lacks resources in that area. \u201cAt the same time as we have 133,000 people disappeared in Mexico, we have 80,000 people in public forensic graves that have not been identified,\u201d she told Justice Info. \u201cIf those corpses were identified, more than half of the problem would be solved.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She says the UN could help the government to design systems for better communication between local authorities on this issue. \u201cIn Mexico, we can have relatively good laws, but they are not implemented,\u201d Azaola Garrido continues. \u201cYou should see the situation in prisons, where I have worked for years. There are some people who are considered disappeared, but they are in prison and have not been able to communicate with their families. The authorities are not willing to put in good communications with the families.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nMostly young victims<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
A government \u201cin denial\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Is this a crime against humanity?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What the UN could do<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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