Puerto Vallarta (PVDN) – Families of missing persons in Mexico have come together to launch a database of mass graves, in the hope of finding their loved ones and bringing attention to the problem of the country’s 112,000 missing person cases. The families, supported by the federal government’s National Search Commission, have been inspecting burial records in cemeteries in the state of Jalisco, which has the highest number of disappearances.
The database, called the Mass Graves Module, is being formed by verifying the conditions in which unidentified bodies are buried, as well as accessing documents from each cemetery to rescue dates and places in which corpses were found, their condition, characteristics, and how long they spent in the Forensic Medical Service. The families have also been verifying the irregularities in the legal and forensic processes, which often delay the identification of missing persons.
The families’ efforts have uncovered numerous irregularities in the handling of unidentified remains, including an instance in which the remains of 47 people were found in a single space with no documents to help identify them. The families hope that the database will shed light on these issues and help to bring their loved ones home.
Jalisco is the state with the most cases of forced disappearance, with 15,010 people, followed by the State of Mexico with 12,682 and Tamaulipas with 12,632. The discovery of at least 168 clandestine graves since 2018, many of them with fragmented bodies, coupled with the lack of specialized forensic personnel and infrastructure, complicates identification and causes families to wait years to have the remains of their loved ones.
The case of Brian Manuel Simental illustrates the difficulties faced by families of missing persons in Mexico. Simental disappeared on January 10, 2022, and his mother, Teresa Sánchez, made multiple visits to Semefo and several unsuccessful DNA tests. However, a citizen search group identified Brian in October in the same Semefo, where he had been for all those months. Sánchez believes that searching for missing persons in pantheons, or cemeteries, is a way to circumvent irregularities in the forensic and legal processes.
The families of missing persons in Mexico are working tirelessly to find their loved ones and to bring attention to the systemic issues that contribute to their disappearances. The Mass Graves Module is an important step in their efforts to identify the missing and to seek justice for those who have been lost.
