Familias Unidas por Nuestros Desaparecidos Jalisco (Jalisco Families United for Our Disappeared or Fundej) is asking authorities to take DNA samples from relatives and create a database of missing individuals, among other things.
“Our only aim is to find our children,” the letter reads. “We will not falter, we will not stop searching or demanding justice from the authorities until all levels of government take appropriate action to find them.”
Protestors outside the State Government Palace carried banners and photos of their missing relatives.
Maria Guadalupe Aguilar, whose son went missing in 2011, was asked how long she plans to repeat her demands. “Until they pay attention,” she said.
According to government statistics, Jalisco follows Tamaulipas as the state with the second-highest number of disappeared people, with more than 2,400 people missing since 2007. Only eight agents are assigned to the investigation of disappearances, according to Aguilar, who blames state rather than federal authorities for the ineffective handling of their cases.
Among those protesting Wednesday was Javier Moreno, whose son Arturo disappeared nine months ago when he went to collect his car from a mechanic’s workshop. Moreno regularly visits the state Attorney General’s Office to ask how his son’s case is advancing. “There’s no sign of him, no car, no cellphone, nothing, they say.” Moreno, whose son is a law professor at the University of Guadalajara and also litigates, accused the banks of failing to provide important details related to cases of disappeared people that might help trace their whereabouts.
While the federal government has reported a 17-percent drop in the murder rate in the past year, unofficial sources claim the number of disappeared has risen by an estimated 170 percent.