Los Desaparecidos: Enough To Fill A City

By Dylana Najera Rios, a triple major writing from Sewanee: The University of the South.

(This article was originally printed in the Spring 2026 edition of our print magazine. To see the entire magazine, click here.)

With over 130,000 people registered as disappeared in 2026, Mexico is facing an industrial-scale human rights crisis where enforced disappearances have become a terrifying norm. The 1996 Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons describes the phenomenon of enforced disappearance as a human rights violation where a person is arrested, detained or abducted by the state or agents acting for the state; who then deny that the person is being held or conceal their whereabouts, placing them outside the protection of the law. Case in point, the enforced disappearance of 43 Mexican students from the Ayotzinapa college in Iguala, Guerrero on September 26, 2014. This case became the face of the national crisis of enforced disappearances in Mexico and an emblematic tragedy. The Ayotzinapa disappearances serve as the definitive illustration of Mexico’s deep seated corruption, shocking the public by blurring the lines between state officials and organized crime. It stands as a ‘crime of the state’ following the debunking of a proven, large-scale government cover up. Even with evidence of state-cartel collusion, impunity persisted: no one has been convicted. The systematic attempt to bury the truth surrounding the fate of the students created massive domestic and international outrage. The mass disappearance crisis in Mexico reveals a deeply entrenched system of state complicity, prevalence of dangerous cartels, and possible close ties to the Mexican government that has normalized human rights abuses and compelled families of the disappeared to become the primary seekers of truth and justice.

Having been an issue since 1968 during the Mexican Dirty War, enforced disappearances have been a systematic crime. Under President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, more than 1,200 people that the government perceived as a threat disappeared. The act of enforced disappearances isn’t the only gruesome part: violations of physical integrity rights also occured, including cruel and unusual treatment, torture, excessive use of force, extrajudicial executions, and political imprisonment or detention. Among those who were forcibly disappeared included, but were not limited to: indigenous people, priests and members of the religious community, political and union leaders, students and academics, members of armed opposition groups, and military or those suspected with enemy collaboration.

As was the case of the 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre, where the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, or the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), used military force to suppress and massacre about 300 students and activists in response to student protests against the government. The PRI was not only responsible for the repression and human rights violations during the Tlatelolco Massacre, but it also has a history of practices such as electoral fraud, clientelism, and control over the media. The PRI dominated the political landscape in Mexico for 71 years until its historic loss in 2000 due to the implementation of sweeping electoral reforms that dismantled the party’s ability to manipulate elections. During its hegemony, it often used strategic violence and both legal and extrajudicial methods to discourage dissent as many of their policies and tactics were aimed at stifling the growing social unrest and political activism. The Mexican government carried out multiple violations of human rights, including the installation of fear, avoiding accountability, and information control, and implemented the use of strategic abductions as a method of repression against its own people through the form of state terror. 

Throughout the years, the number of enforced disappearances and government corruption have only increased. In its assessment of 170 counties, the Atlas of Impunity identifies the lowest levels of power abuse with scores nearing zero and overall rank nearing 170. This overall ranking incorporates several key metrics, including unaccountable governance, conflict and violence, and the abuse of human rights. As reported in February 2024, Mexico’s score was 2.35, and its overall rank was 52 out of 170. Just a year later, Mexico’s score rose in impunity to 2.59, and its overall rank dropped to 31, showing more impunity than before. Furthering, the government of Mexico repeatedly fails to investigate and prosecute the disappearances and murders of journalists. Mexico is considered to be the country with the highest number of disappeared and murdered journalists in the world outside of active war zones. The Congressional Research Service states the surging attacks on journalists as a violation of the freedom of press as well as control of information and is described as “politically driven attempts to intimidate independent media” (2022). The refusal of acknowledgement from the authorities creates a dangerous place for journalists to be in since their rights aren’t protected by the government. The government doesn’t focus on protecting its journalists due to the fact that sometimes journalists are working to expose corruption and leaders, especially when it links the government to drug related violence. Although criminal organizations aid in corruption, government forces play a role due to their incompetence and misconduct.

With the increasing violence and instability caused by cartels, criminal organizations employ forced disappearances as a multi-purpose tool for intimidation, coerced recruitment, and abduction. These operations frequently benefit from the collusion of local officials, which systematically undermines the legal process and ensures that official investigations remain ineffective. An extermination camp at Izaguirre Ranch in Jalisco found by the Buscadores Guerreros de Jalisco, a search collective, in March 2025 renewed attention to Mexico’s ongoing crisis of enforced disappearances. They uncovered three crematoriums, or “secret ovens,” alongside human remains and clothing items, suggesting that the site used hidden, makeshift underground incinerators to systematically dispose of victims. When the site was previously raided by the National Guard and the Jalisco State Prosecutor’s Office in September 2024, authorities only reported rescuing hostages and seizing weapons, yet there were no reports of the crematoriums. The discovery was linked to organized crime activity, but also included allegations of state inaction, weak investigations, and possible complicity by local authorities. Correspondingly, members of civil search organizations are at risk when they seek justice for the disappearance of family members. In April 2025, two members of the Guerreros Buscadores were shot and killed after they helped expose the killing site.

Cases like this underscore the scale of violence faced by civilians and the persistent failure of accountability. The disappearances in Mexico have grown so extreme and widespread that in April 2025, the United Nations activated Article 34 of the Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) against Mexico for the first time in history; however, the Mexican government rejected the statements made by the Committee members alleging State-sponsored enforced disappearances. On March 27, 2026,  Mexico’s government publicly undermined the depth of Mexico’s human rights violations by stating that it has identified signs of life for a third of the country’s 130,000 registered missing people. This triggered intense backlash, with public outrage growing over the ongoing lack of accountability. The terror being inflicted on the people of Mexico has risen as not only is the fear for the disappeared, but also the family and friends that are investigating are now vulnerable.

The systemic failure to investigate human rights violations combined with the extreme impunity has forced families of the disappeared to create a revolt of their own through risky search collectives, known as buscadores. Because the records and remains of the victim’s bodies and evidence of enforced disappearances are usually destroyed, it makes it difficult for the families of victims to prove their cases and hold perpetrators accountable. The gap between families and the government has only grown more due to distrust. The victims’ families suffer greatly since abductions provide no resolvement of knowing where their loved ones are. For families, this is a form of cruel, psychological violence. Now, families have decided to take this crisis into their own hands. Thousands of ‘Missing Person’ flyers paint the streets of Mexico, silently haunting, not only the families, but the country. The injustice of enforced disappearances brings forth the demand that the international community joins forces to end such a common, now daily, heinous crime in hopes for a future where families don’t have to mourn a memory.