On September 24th and 25th, organizations that have been searching for their missing relatives since 2018 gathered—joined this time by groups formed more recently. Together, they analyzed the best search strategies, identified which approaches cause burnout among the collectives, and discussed the conditions families need to demand that the State fulfill its obligations and to continue searching without endangering their lives.
This is not the first time they have organized to analyze and agree on effective search strategies in the face of what they view as negligence, omission, or complicity by government institutions—institutions that, on one hand, fail to halt the violence and, on the other, fail to take effective action to locate their missing loved ones.
This meeting took place against a backdrop of rising figures in Chiapas. Official data shows that Chiapas went from 1,526 cases of missing persons in 2025 to over 2,000 active cases by mid-2026. As of August 29th of this year, there were 1,982 missing or unaccounted-for persons in the state, out of a national total of 132,834. The participants noted that these figures do not reflect the true numbers, which they believe are much higher.
The gathering, held in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, brought together search collectives from Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Oaxaca, Puebla, Guerrero, and Quintana Roo for what they termed the Sixth Regional Forum “For the Right to Truth, Justice, and Reparation.” Collectives from Central America and the United States also attended.
After two days of work, they issued a public statement outlining their positions. “No one is born to go looking for the person they love,” the text notes. “Becoming a family of searchers was neither a choice nor a life plan. It was a reality imposed by the disappearance of our loved ones and exacerbated, all too often, by the lack of effective responses from institutions.”
In the statement, they question institutional actions that rely more on imposing media narratives than on conducting effective searches: “A rousing speech is not justice. A photograph is not a search. A promise is no substitute for an investigation.”
The document rejects the approach taken by government institutions—including the Chiapas Attorney General’s Office—which relies on meetings and promises that fail to translate into effective searches. “We do not want meetings that end in photo ops. We do not want roundtables with no follow-up. We do not want speeches that acknowledge our struggle while case files remain stalled.”
It also rejects the suspicion with which their relatives are often met. “We do not have to prove that our missing loved ones were ‘good people’ for the State to search for them.”
Regarding the solidarity that sustains them, the statement includes a rare caveat: they appreciate the support of allied organizations, “but we do not romanticize that solidarity; if we need support networks, it is because the State has failed to fulfill its obligation to search, investigate, protect, and guarantee justice.”
Collectives from Mexico, Central America, and the United States expressed their solidarity with the groups in Chiapas. “In the face of official rhetoric speaking of peace and tranquility, we define Chiapas as a southern border territory marked by disappearances, internal forced displacement, human mobility, and a forensic crisis that prevents the identification and dignified return of many individuals.” This point was raised two weeks after Governor Eduardo Ramírez Aguilar presented a report to President Claudia Sheinbaum on September 11th, placing Chiapas among the states with the lowest crime rates in the country.
On August 30th, during demonstrations marking the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances in Arriaga, San Cristóbal, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, and Yajalón, women searching for missing loved ones alleged that rifts between their collectives were being fueled by state institutions. “They are instigated by the State itself,” one member said at the time. “It does not suit the State for all of us families with missing loved ones to be seen standing united.”
In that same August statement, the families had dedicated an entire section to the issue—titled “Do Not Divide the Families Who Are Searching”—and defined their demands with a phrase that serves as a methodology: “Searching is not just about putting up a missing-person flyer on a utility pole. Searching means investigating, conducting field searches, and exhausting every possibility until the person is found.”
The September events focused precisely on this: how to maintain coordination when division is—according to the families themselves—a government strategy. The final document puts it this way: “We know that our unity matters, because when one person cannot go on, another holds them up; when one door closes, our network seeks another.”
Care as a Strategy
A central part of the gathering was dedicated to something that rarely appears on search agendas: the toll taken on those who search. “We have also learned that taking care of ourselves is part of our struggle,” the statement notes. “The exhaustion cannot become another form of violence against those who search. We have a right to rest, and to care for our bodies, our health, our families, and our lives.”
The document also acknowledges that not all families can participate equally, and that this does not measure their level of commitment: “We do not all search in the same way, but every form of sustaining the search matters: going out into the field, documenting, providing support, cooking, caregiving, praying, maintaining a phone call, a case file, a network, or a word of encouragement.”
Regarding risks, the demand is direct: “We also demand that searching not cost us our lives. Families should not have to enter unsafe territories alone or expose themselves to danger in order to carry out a task that is primarily the responsibility of institutions.”
The statement concludes with an observation that has run through these gatherings for eight years: “We are here today because we had no other choice. In a country where no one disappeared, this space would not need to exist.”
And with a demand: “We do not want to manage the disappearance. We want to find them.”
Original article by Ángeles Mariscal, Chiapas Paralelo, September 28th, 2026.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.