UN Extends Solidarity to Families of Missing Persons in Mexico

The UN Secretary General's statements came after Mexican authorities reported a count of more than 100 000 cases on the evening of May 16.

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"António Guterres conveys his deep solidarity to the families of the victims who yearn to be reunited with their loved ones, search tirelessly for them and continue to fight for truth, justice and guarantees that this will not happen again," the secretary-general's spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, said in a statement issued at UN headquarters in New York, U.S.

The National Registry of Missing Persons announced on the evening of May 16 that, from 1964 to that current day, the whereabouts of 100 012 missing persons are unknown and that more than 30 percent of those cases have been reported since December 2018, when President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's term in office began.

The UN thus renews "its commitment to accompany Mexico in its efforts to prevent and combat this grave violation of human rights, which causes extraordinary suffering to the victims and their families and harms society as a whole," says Guterres' message, transmitted by his spokesperson.

António Guterres, Secretary General of the UN, expressed solidarity with the families of the thousands of disappeared in Mexico. "My deep solidarity with the families of the victims who yearn to reunite with their loved ones," said the organization's leader.

"The secretary-general commends the positive steps taken by the Mexican government to guarantee the rights of victims of disappearances and encourages the Mexican authorities to continue to accelerate progress," Dujarric's statement said.

Guterres also welcomed that some of the government's measures will be implemented with the support of the UN, including the representation of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michele Bachelet, and the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED).

Bachelet cited the official record to indicate that "about a quarter of the missing persons are women, while about a fifth were under 18 at the time of their disappearance" and said that "this overwhelming rate of impunity is mainly attributable to the lack of effective investigations."