Mexico: Mothers of Missing Ignored by Peña Nieto Government

Mothers of disappeared youth hold hunger strike in front of Attorney General's office
Photo: Germán Canseco

Proceso: Marcela Turati

Mexico City - Today the hunger strike outside the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), led by mothers whose children have gone missing, reaches its fifth day. So far, federal government employees have failed to respond to the protesters’ demands to meet with President Enrique Peña Nieto.

Some stretched out in tents, others seated wearily in plastic chairs, all the women have been wearing surgical masks since yesterday afternoon, when a Doctors Without Borders team gave them a health check-up.

The women say that sympathetic employees from the office of the Deputy Attorney General for Human Rights paid them a visit in a personal capacity, bringing honey to help them sustain the fast, which they say will continue, as they have been told that the Attorney General, Jesús Murillo Karam, is “throwing a tantrum” and is angry with them for having set up camp outside his office.

“We’re not leaving from here until things are resolved, until the President meets with us and sits down with his staff to tell us when and how they will start searching for our children,” says Margarita López

Her daughter, Yahaira Guadalupe Bahena, disappeared in Oaxaca two years ago and she claims that, due to a lack of money, the PGR has not been able to take the final steps to recover her daughter’s body, which they have already located.

She is lying on a mattress recovering from a cold as she speaks. Other women say they are suffering shivers and bone aches, having spent one night in the rain and lacking blankets during the first days of the strike.

“Everyone has made promises: the Secretariat of Government Relations' Human Rights office told us they would put pressure on the relevant authorities to do their job, and Secretary Osorio Chong said he would be following each case closely and would set up a specialised team to attend to us in the PGR. But though they treat us well, they say they have neither the financial nor the human resources to go out and search. They promised to create an immediate search party within the Federal Police, but they have done nothing,” the mother from Michoacán complains.

The camp outside the PGR displays dozens of photos of people who have gone missing in recent years, mostly youngsters and some children.

“Today we’re already starting to experience a few problems: I’ve already got cramps and the change of temperature and the damp is affecting my rheumatoid arthritis. [The rainy season has begun.] But we’re carrying on because we’re convinced, hopeful and determined that the authorities will listen to us,” says Irma Alicia Trejo Trejo

Her 20-year old son, Francisco Albavera, went missing on March 26, 2012, in the Federal District. She reported him missing, but she claims that the authorities told her to shut herself away at home for four months, say nothing and wait for them to call. They never reappeared.

Another woman, Erika Montes de Oca, is looking for her nephew, Sergio Eduardo Guillén, who disappeared on November 28, 2012, also in the Federal District. She explains that they decided to wear surgical masks because the Doctors Without Borders volunteers told them that their health was already deteriorating, and that their defenses were weak, leaving them vulnerable to illness.

In the morning, at a table bearing flowers and photos of their family members, the women and the father who is accompanying them prepare their electrolytes with honey and their oral rehydration mixtures. Two mothers have had to leave the hunger strike and return home due to exhaustion.

“It doesn't look like they’ll see us any time soon and, though we are exhausted, we have no other option,” Margarita López warns.

Spanish original