Mothers demand concrete responses from the authorities.

Manuel Jacobo.- From 2014 to 2019 the municipality of Chapala registered 62 people  as “missing and not located”, according to data provided by the Jalisco State Prosecutor’s Office. ”Missing” is used by authorities to indicate a person whose location is unknown and who likely have been a victim of crime. Authorities use the category of a “non-located person” as one whose whereabouts are unknown but who is not suspected as being a victim of foul play.

Only two local people were listed as “disappeared” between 2014 to 2018 by the Prosecutor’s office,  but  it registered 25  disappeared non-local men and four women during the same period, although 29 non-local people were initially reported disappeared in Chapala, for  a total of 31 disappeared  in Chapala between 2014 and 2018.

Little is known about the identity and suffering of their families as the authorities did not obtain or provide sufficient information about the victims and neither did their relatives.

A young woman looking for her missing relative.

However, 2019 saw a brutal spike in “disappeared” and unlocated people with 31 total — as many as in the previous five years. Four people were listed as “missing persons” and likely victims of crime, and 20 men and seven women were listed as “unlocated” for a total of 31.

However, unlike in the previous years, families responded by publicizing the disappearances on social media, which may have contributed to the higher count and revelation of the serious situation in the Chapala municipality.

December saw the registration of most non-local people, 10 males, according to the records of the Prosecutor’s Office. Laguna obtained a transparency of the document FE / UT / 378/2020 which showed that from 2018 to 2019, 17 missing people were eventually found -37 percent of the total registered, of which 16 were alive and one deceased.  Overall, of 46 missing persons registered as missing or unlocated in from 2018 to 2019, 29 people or 63 percent never returned home. 

Various efforts are underway to put faces to the  numbers of the disappeared, such as «hearts on the move» and in coordination with projects such as «Warriors in search of our treasures», so now the search, although with little government support, is underway. Below are the names and information of those still being sought:

Bryan Gabriel Ángel García, 16 years old, disappeared. Investigation folder 87594/2019 at the Jalisco State Prosecutor’s Office

Humberto Barajas Centeno disappeared on December 25, 2019; registration 224 / DS / FC / 2020 in the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic

Juan Pablo Navarro Flores, 26, disappeared in September 2018; registration 218 / DS / FC / 2020 in the Attorney General’s Office

Marco Antonio Santos Castañeda, 30 years old; on file in the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic

José Alfonso Tavares Fernández, 18 years old, disappeared on December 20, 2019;  registration 217 / DS / FC / 2020 in the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic

Alfonso Tavares Contreras, 36 years old, disappeared on December 20, 2019; registration 216 / DS / FC / 2020 in the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic

Luis Eduardo Pérez Solís, 16 years old, disappeared on November 22, 2019;  registration 249 / DS / FC / 2020with the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic 

Bryan Alexander Rosas Ramos, 16 years old, from the La Purísima neighborhood, disappeared on November 22, 2019, his mother was extorted; registration 246 / DS / FC / 2020 in the Attorney General’s Office 

Juan Pablo Romero Ríos, 35, disappeared on December 7, 2019 in the hills of Chapala; registration 230 / DS / FC / 2020 in the Attorney General’s Office 

Alfredo Chávez Aceves, 51 years old, disappeared on December 24, 2019 in Chapala; registration 44653/2019by the Jalisco State Prosecutor’s Office 

Julián Hernández Sánchez, 17 years old, disappeared on December 24, 2019 when he left his job and has not been located

Francisco Javier Contreras Ramírez, 49, disappeared in Chapala and registration 232 / DS / FC / 2020 with the Attorney General’s Office 

23-year-old José Martín Mendoza Celis disappeared on December 23, 2019; registration 213 / DS / FC / 202 with the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic 

Tokens generated in the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic

(translated by Patrick O’Heffernan)