Mexico Mothers Live Fractured Lives After 'Disappearance' of Loved Ones

Photo: Cuartoscuro

CNN Mexico: Daniela Rea 

Once again, the mothers take up their chants:

"¡Hijo escucha, tu madre está en la lucha; hijo escucha, tu madre está en la lucha!" 

"Listen, son, your mother is in the struggle! Listen, son, your mother is in the struggle!"

The people, mostly women, march along Reforma Avenue in the center of Mexico City carrying photos of the faces of their disappeared children, husbands, brothers.

They marched to commemorate Mother's Day [in Mexico it is May 10], although it seems a contradiction because their children are not with them. As they did last year, they demand to know what has happened to government promises about learning the whereabouts of their loved ones.

In this march, which began at the Monument to the Mother and ended at the Angel of Independence, the mothers tell how the disappearance of their children fractured their lives and their families. Some lost their jobs in the search for their family members, while others have had to deal with illness.

Fractured Families

When the son of Yolanda Morán, Dan Jeremeel, disappeared in Torreón on December 19, 2008, her family moved away. His brothers, nephews, cousins didn't want to know and just commented,

"What about him that he was up to something?" and "What if they want to take us as well?" 

Out of fear, Dan's friends also went away.

"I did not complain, not to my family or friends, even though they were staunch supporters of the fiesta, but when he needed them most, they were not there. Sometimes one has to learn to fight alone, but on the road I found another family, like this one that accompanies us," she says on the march.

Fractured Health

Yolanda, who complained to then President Felipe Calderón in the dialogues of Chapultepec (April and October of 2011) about the discrimination against victims, has had to learn to live with diabetes, which afflicted her with Dan's disappearance. She was hospitalized for two months.

It is common to hear among them that one or another got diabetes, another's face is paralyzed, yet another got a tumor.

Like Brenda Rangel, 35, who searches for her brother Hector, who disappeared more than three years ago from Monclova, Coahuila. Two weeks ago, Brenda was diagnosed with a stomach tumor. She says it's the pain accumulated in her body.

"I have left behind my entire life in search of my brother, I'm not who I was, I do not trust people, I have a tumor in the stomach for all the emotions, the indifference of the authorities," she says while she walks at the head of the march.

Brenda is a lawyer, but since the disappearance of her brother she cannot litigate, not even peek into the records of his case. Now she maintains herself by selling clothes and holding raffles.

Fractured Finances

Another problem experienced by these families is an economic crisis. Their money, their savings--they relate--goes to undertake the search. They lose their jobs because the disappeared are criminalized.

Delia García, mother of Edson Amado de la Rosa, who disappeared on July 9, 2009, in Torreón, Coahuila, reports that her husband was fired from the gas station where he worked because they feared that their son was "up to something bad." 

The same happened to María Rosario Cano, mother of Mario Alberto who disappeared in Chihuahua. Her husband is a physical education teacher and gained weight from the anxiety, lost his job and also another job as a guard because of absences in order to go to the [judicial] hearings.

Fractured Lives

Diana Iris walks in the midst of the group. After the disappearance of her son Daniel Cantú in 2007, her life changed completely. To the absence and uncertainty was added the urgency to resolve everyday life. Diana had been a devoted, full time mother, but she had to start working; now she supports herself by selling clothing and gifts.

Every day, this woman who has reported the disappearances to the United Nations Organization (UN), tells her other two sons that their brother needs it, that they do not know where he is or if he is suffering. So she must go out and look for him.

"...the other sons complain, but they understand, they understand that if I don't look for their brother, no one will look for him, then their complaint becomes a concern that nothing happens," she says.

In the search for her son, she lost her partner.

"He told me I was selfish because I only wanted to know of [our son's] whereabouts, and I risked his safety and that of my other children. He made a responsible search in his way, with the investigative police. When I discovered this struggle and became an activist, he was not in agreement, and a year and a half ago he left."

Just after 12:00 PM, the march arrived at the Angel of Independence in which the list of disappeared numbered more than a hundred. Letters sent by mothers in other states were read to accompany the group.

Bishop Raúl Vera [Coahuila] joined the call for justice and an end to impunity. Blanca Martínez, an activist who accompanies mothers of the Joint Forces for Our Disappeared in Mexico, invites them not to lower their spirits.

"Let us continue moving forward, warriors!" she urges them, and the others respond with hugs.

At the end of the march, the women gradually withdrew, some to their homes, others to continue the efforts of the investigations and to pressure the authorities. Spanish original