Mexico’s government on Monday unveiled a new investigative unit to track down thousands of people who have gone missing amid a brutal drug war, and relatives of victims warily welcomed the move.
Families have pressed authorities for years to find their loved ones and the unit was formed after a dozen mothers held a nine-day hunger strike to force the government to act.
“We want to use all instruments and resources at our disposal on this issue,” Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong told a news conference.
“We know you have been dissatisfied for a long time,” he said to an audience that included relatives of victims who say authorities have shown little interest in investigation cases and have even asked parents to do their own investigative work.
The families shouted at the end of the press conference, “We don’t want promises, we want you to act!” and “Where are they, where are they? Where are our children?”
“Hopefully now that they are doing this publicly this will succeed. The truth is that we need it. We need them to get to work for us to get clear answers,” a tearful Maria Herrera, mother of eight children, including four who went missing in 2008, told AFP.
The government had vowed earlier this month to create the unit, which will be within the attorney general’s office and will increase the number of investigators in charge of missing people from six to 12.
The International Committee of the Red Cross will provide technical assistance.
The presentation came three days after Osorio Chong told foreign journalists that fewer people have disappeared than previously thought because many people simply emigrated or left their homes for personal reasons.
A list compiled by the previous administration found that 26,121 people vanished during the presidency of Felipe Calderon between 2006 and 2012, a period that saw 70,000 people die from drug-related violence.
The government of President Enrique Pena Nieto, who took office in December, will release a revised figure in two months, the interior minister said.
Mexico launches unit to find thousands missing
