A woman who has a missing relative walks amid clandestine graves at the Colinas de Santa Fe mass burial site on Oct. 15, 2018.Felix Marquez/The Associated Press
Nearly 7,000 Mexicans were formally reported as disappeared in 2020, though that was a 22 per cent decrease from a year earlier, the country’s top human rights official said Friday.
Assistant Secretary for Human Rights Alejandro Encinas said the number of clandestine graves found dropped by third last year and the number of bodies recovered in those graves – 1,086 – fell by 18 per cent.
More than half of those recovered bodies came in the states of Jalisco and Guanajuato, where the Jalisco New Generation cartel has been involved in violent territorial disputes. One municipality, El Salto, Jalisco, was the source of 189 bodies last year.
The Disappeared: Inside families' risky search to uncover the truth
Identifying and returning those bodies to their families continues to be a struggle. Of the 2,395 bodies recovered since the current administration took power in December 2018, 39 per cent have been identified and nearly 22 per cent returned to relatives.
Mexico officially has recorded more than 80,000 reported disappearances since 2006.
“Independently of the limitations that the pandemic has put on us, we have made the search for people an essential task that with limitations, following health norms, continues the length and breadth of the country as a priority signalled by the president,” Mr. Encinas said.
Our Morning Update and Evening Update newsletters are written by Globe editors, giving you a concise summary of the day’s most important headlines. Sign up today.