Relatives and friends of 43 missing students hold pictures during a protest in Mexico City on Wednesday in front of the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs to demand the extradition from Israel of two alleged perpetrators of the forced disappearances from Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College in the state of Guerrero in 2014. Photo by Mario Guzman/EPA
The crisis of enforced disappearances in Mexico reached the United Nations headquarters in Geneva this week as the U.N. Committee on Enforced Disappearances began to reviewing the issue after receiving reports that it has become widespread and systematic.
The review includes information provided by the Mexican government and civil society organizations, as well as relatives of the victims.
U.N. experts are seeking to determine the extent of impunity, lack of institutional coordination, and violence against those searching for their missing loved ones – all factors cited as contributing to ineffective search and investigation policies.
Of all urgent action requests issued by the committee its 15 years of operation, 37% have involved cases in Mexico.
Against that backdrop, the committee’s 10 members began to review available information on Monday in Geneva after Article 34 of the International Convention on the crisis was invoked for the first time, reflecting its magnitude and urgency.
Article 34 states that if the committee receives credible information indicating that enforced disappearance is being carried out in a “widespread or systematic” manner in the territory of a state party, it “may, on an urgent basis, bring the matter to the attention of the General Assembly” to support victims and advise the country on measures to be adopted.
The review of information submitted by the Mexican government and other stakeholders — including human rights defenders and groups of “searching mothers” — will continue through Oct. 2 as part of the committee’s 29th session, chaired by Ecuadorian lawyer Juan Pablo Albán.
The committee has monitored the situation in Mexico since at least 2012. In 2015, it reported that disappearances were widespread across several regions and that impunity was nearly absolute.
The situation regarding disappearances in the country worsens every year. While in 2024 an average of 27 people went missing per day, that number rose to more than 45 in the first quarter this year.
More than 133,000 people have disappeared in Mexico between 2006 and September, according to the National Registry of Missing and Unlocated Persons. Authorities are holding more than 72,000 unidentified bodies in government facilities, along with hundreds of thousands of bone fragments.
Only 373 convictions for enforced disappearance or disappearance committed by private individuals were issued between 2017 and January.
“The Mexican state must respond to the committee with a proposal to address the root causes of disappearances, guaranteeing truth, justice, reparations, an end to impunity, prompt and proper identification, and the dignified return of missing people to their homes, with effective and transparent mechanisms for measurement and accountability,” civil society groups, collectives and families of the disappeared said in a joint statement.
Since 2012, the committee has issued 1,931 urgent requests to investigate alleged disappearances and to assist victims with searches and access to information.
Of those, 729 were directed to Mexico — the highest number among 31 countries. Iraq followed with 692 requests, Colombia with 241 and Cuba with 194.
Mexico has amended laws and created institutions for investigation, identification and search efforts. But a lack of human and financial resources, persistent impunity and failure to address the problem at a structural level, as the CED has recommended, have produced poor results.
