San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas
May 9, 2026
Statement
We don’t want the World Cup—we want our daughters and sons back home!
On May 9, families, collectives, and organizations gathered at this vigil for the mothers who have died, been murdered, and/or gone missing in Mexico while seeking justice and the truth; in their memory and on their behalf, we shout: We don’t want the World Cup—we want our daughters and sons back home!
The situation of chronic violence in Mexico, and specifically in Chiapas, is grave; murders, torture, arbitrary detentions, displacement, and disappearances are on the rise every day. Meanwhile, we face a carefully crafted and orchestrated narrative from federal and state authorities that denies this crisis, fostering impunity.
Administration after administration, we have been denouncing, with data, the exponential growth in the number of missing persons in Chiapas; in recent years, this situation is explained by the territorial disputes and control struggles among criminal groups, with government tolerance and acquiescence.
According to the National Registry of Missing and Unlocated Persons, as of May 2026, 133,680 people have been reported missing in Mexico, of whom 1,995 are from Chiapas; one person goes missing in the country every 40 minutes; these figures reflect only part of the reality, as there is underreporting, and these official figures contrast with the data provided by families and civil society organizations.
In the context of the territorial disputes among organized crime groups in Chiapas, the profile of missing and unaccounted-for persons shows that men under 35 are the most common among men, while women under 30 are the most common among women; and among those under 18, adolescents aged 12 to 17 predominate.
Every missing person brings us closer to a part of the reality of our territory: the migrant on the road disappears; the person detained by police and military disappears; the mother, father, brother, sister, or friend you are searching for disappears; the defender of the territory disappears; the young person who is recruited disappears; the woman, girl, and adolescent disappear into a trafficking network; the person in a disputed territory disappears; someone you love disappears.
This May 10, at least 1,995 people in Chiapas have nothing to celebrate; amid the false atmosphere of joy created by the World Cup, we want to tell you that more than 500 children and adolescents in Chiapas will not be celebrating this day because their mothers are missing; husbands and fathers are also searching for their daughters and wives; 133,680 families will not shout, “Goal!” For them, their playing field is the search site, their jersey is their work clothes, and their ball is the shovels and picks they use to find their loved ones; they search with dignity while the eyes of the world are on a World Cup, where Mexico is the world champion in disappearances. The cry of “Goal!” will not drown out the cry of pain and rage from thousands of families: “They took them alive; we want them back alive!”
The Mexican government owes a profound debt to the families searching for their loved ones throughout Mexico; it has an obligation to take action against criminal networks. Otherwise, the violence—which is already chronic—will continue to erode the social and community fabric, normalizing and justifying acts of terror that have already scarred entire generations.
On May 9 and 10, we join the various expressions of Memory, Truth, and Justice taking place across the country; we salute the National Vigil and the National March of thousands of mothers and families, which will take place tomorrow, May 10, in different cities across Mexico; we salute the mothers from other countries whose sons and daughters disappeared on Mexican soil.
The Searching Mothers of Mexico have shown us that the struggle is ongoing and that, in the face of the indifference orchestrated and enforced by the State, dignity prevails; they are an example of the struggle for truth and justice in the search for all those who are missing.
We don’t want the World Cup—we want our daughters and sons back home!
They took them alive—we want them back alive!
Why are we searching for them? Because we love them!
Working Group Against Disappearances in Chiapas
Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba)
Collective of Women Searchers from the Highlands of Chiapas
Committee of United Families of Chiapas Searching for Our Missing Migrants “Junax
Ko’ntantik”
Melel Xojobal
Network for the Rights of Children and Adolescents in Chiapas (Redias)
Services and Advisory for Peace (Serapaz)
Mesoamerican Voices, Action with Migrant Peoples
Original text published by Frayba on May 9th, 2026.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.