In Chiapas, 1546 families did not celebrate Mother’s Day because they are missing a loved one. This was stated by the Working Group against Disappearances in Chiapas, made up of searchers and accompanying organizations, during the event held in San Cristóbal de Las Casas this May 10. In its communiqué, the working group also criticized the further militarization of public life that has been promoted by the new state government: “Police operations will not change the course of the region if the Madres Buscadoras (searching mothers) are not attended to and the historical roots of disappearance are not examined,” it said.
During the rally in the central park of the Chiapas city, the searchers set up an altar built with picks and shovels in memory of the mothers who died before finding their children, and of the eleven searchers who have been murdered in Mexico.
“It is important to remember them and raise our voices, because killing someone who is looking for their child is something we cannot understand,” said Reina Guadalupe Morales Cruz, from Junax Ko’tantik – Committee of relatives of missing Chiapas migrants, who is looking for her brother Abraham Morales Cruz, who disappeared in Sonora on August 19, 2015.
One of Junax Ko’tantik’s main demands is the formation of the Citizen Council, one of the bodies that according to the law should make up the State System for the Search for Missing Persons. “In the Citizen’s Council, relatives of the disappeared and accompanying organizations participate so that our voice is heard and has more weight. It is very necessary to put pressure on the State,” added Patricia del Carmen Ton Méndez, from Junax Ko’tantik, who is looking for her son Hugo Francisco Ton Méndez, her daughter-in-law Karina del Carmen Ruiz Guillén and her brother, Carlos Alfredo Ruiz Guillén, who disappeared on April 16, 2019 in a Wal-Mart in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas.
For her part, Griselda Pineda Herrera, of Voces Mesoamericanas, an organization that accompanies Junax Ko’tantik, explained that the Citizen Council, in accordance with the 2017 General Law on Enforced Disappearances, had to be appointed by the Congresses of the States 90 days after the entry into force of the state laws that regulate the matter. In the case of Chiapas this law came into force in October 2019, however the Citizen Council has not yet been installed.
The Chiapas searchers and the organizations that accompany them doubt that the new government will mean a real change in public policies related to the search for disappeared persons, and fear that the creation of the Citizen’s Council is still an unfulfilled promise. “This body has to do with the participation of the victims and I believe that what the State wants least of all is for them to participate. What it wants, on the contrary, is for them to wear themselves out and stop searching,” concluded Griselda.
Original text and photos by Orsetta Bellani published in Desinformémonos on May 12, 2025.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.