135,000 Missing: Victims' Families Gather in the Capital

Families of the disappeared in Mexico, together with advocacy groups, cleaned the fencing around a memorial in Mexico City on Sunday (23/8/2026), ahead of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, which is commemorated every 30 August.

Members of the collective Roundabout of the Disappeared gathered on Reforma, one of the main thoroughfares of the Mexican capital. They removed various posters and signs attached to the memorial’s fencing.

The activity was carried out to prepare the area ahead of a mass posting of missing-person search flyers on 30 August. The action forms part of efforts to raise public awareness of the ongoing crisis of disappearances in Mexico.

Mexico currently records more than 135,000 missing people. The figure has risen sharply since 2006, when President Felipe Calderon launched a war against drug cartels in the country.

Although the government says it treats helping madres buscadoras, or the mothers searching for their family members, as a priority, relatives complain of inefficient bureaucracy and a lack of financial support. They often carry out their own investigations in dangerous areas that remain operational bases for armed cartels.

Victims’ families also believe the high number of unresolved missing-person cases helps to mask the scale of violence and crime in Mexico. The crisis has even prompted the UN body dealing with enforced disappearances to activate, for the first time, a mechanism calling on other countries to support Mexico’s investigations and forensic work.

However, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has firmly rejected the move. She stated that the mechanism is intended for situations where the state is involved in disappearances and insisted that Mexico’s system is not overwhelmed in handling the crisis.