The mothers who search for Mexico’s missing children

Mexico City, Mexico – The mariachi set had conscionable struck up its archetypal ranchera erstwhile Axel grabbed his mother’s hand.

“Come on, mama!” the lanky 16-year-old shouted, spinning Daniela beneath a canopy of insubstantial lanterns glowing successful the lukewarm nighttime air.

The courtyard pulsed with euphony and laughter arsenic cousins joined in, skirts twirling and shoes scuffing the ground. When Daniela tried to gaffe distant to rest, her lad pulled her back, draping his favourite grey hoodie implicit her shoulders and tugging her by the sleeves.

That was successful April 2022.

Six months later, Daniela Gonzalez was knee-deep successful a ravine filled with garbage searching for her son.

Two months aft the household wedding wherever they’d danced until the aboriginal hours, Axel disappeared.

Daniela begins a 20-metre (66-foot) descent into a ravine to hunt for her son’s remains [Mark Viales/Al Jazeera]

Searching for graves

It is simply a sunny, cloudless greeting successful May 2025, and Daniela is preparing to little herself immoderate 20 metres (66 feet) into a ravine successful Palmas Axotitla, a hillside neighbourhood successful the borough of Alvaro Obregon.

The country is simply a maze of flat-roofed, two- and three-storey homes tightly packed on steep streets, with constrictive alleyways snaking betwixt them. The ravine cuts done the neighbourhood, edged by houses with protruding factual foundations and a tiny playground.

The ravine’s steep slopes are littered with rubbish, breached furnishings and integrative bottles tangled successful the dense undergrowth. Sewage collects into foul, foaming streams amid the vegetation and rubbish astatine the bottommost of the ravine.

It is simply a spot residents avoid.

The neighbourhood, similar respective others successful Alvaro Obregon, is nether cartel control. Rival gangs usage the dead-end streets arsenic hiding grounds from which to merchantability drugs and enlistee young men, and the ravine arsenic a dumping crushed for their execution victims. In 2021, authorities recovered quality remains from the Palmas Axotitla ravine. More bodies are believed to beryllium buried there.

Daniela arrives astatine the ravine astatine astir 8 am. She is not alone. More than 100 radical stitchery astatine the ravine’s edge, entering the tract done an opening successful the rusted playground fence.

Most are household members of the missing. It took them a twelvemonth to get support from the section authorities to behaviour a five-day hunt cognition astatine the site. They person travel successful the anticipation that among the piles of rubbish, they mightiness find the remains of their sons and daughters, siblings, husbands and wives.

Alongside the families are much than 20 members of Mexico City’s occurrence brigade, who volition assistance with the search, equipped constabulary and National Guard troops, who volition scan the hillsides for cartel “lookouts” who whitethorn onslaught those searching if they get excessively adjacent to their clandestine burial sites, and forensic specialists who acceptable up stainless alloy tables acceptable to analyse immoderate remains that are found.

Daniela and the different mothers accidental specified ample operations lone hap aft they exert unit connected the Mexico City authorities to travel them, and that, successful galore cases, searches whitethorn not person been indispensable had the authorities taken their loved ones’ disappearances earnestly erstwhile they were archetypal reported. When information forces are present, it tin consciousness similar a show for section quality outlets, they add. And astir of the time, families hunt connected their own.

“We’re the ones who find,” Daniela explains.

“This enactment we do,” she says, “is resistance. It’s re-existence. It’s love.”

Into the ravine

Around Daniela, mothers successful sunhats tighten the laces of their waterproof boots. In the playground, volunteers agelong a tarp for shadiness and acceptable retired h2o bottles.

After pulling connected a surgical disguise to shield against the stench, Daniela clips into a information enactment and climbs down into the ravine. The aerial is damp and dense with the odor of rotting nutrient and carnal carcasses. She starts to crook implicit torn mattresses and twisted ligament with a pitchfork.

“I inactive hunt with the anticipation that he’s alive,” the 40-year-old parent of 3 explains.

Voices echo astir her, a premix of shouted instructions and quiescent prayers. Metal tools occasionally onslaught stone. Possible “lookouts” are spotted by household members, but vanish into the alleyways earlier officers tin scope them.

At astir noon, the harsh prima bearing down connected her, Daniela plunges her pitchfork into the sludge and pulls retired a crumpled hoodie. It is acheronian with mud. Her hands tremble arsenic she turns it over. But the logo is wrong. The size is different. It’s not Axel’s.

Later that afternoon, erstwhile the day’s hunt ends, she stands adjacent a watercourse of achromatic wastewater falling from a clump of orangish ceramic houses peering implicit the cliff face. “I thought I had recovered him,” she says, her words catching successful her throat.

“I felt this shock, similar my thorax caved in. And past thing — it wasn’t his. I conscionable person to support going.”

A squad of much than 20 members from a subdivision of Mexico City’s occurrence brigade excavation into the hillside successful hunt of quality remains [Mark Viales/Al Jazeera]

Disappearance crisis

Since 2006, astir 120,000 radical person gone missing successful Mexico. That year, then-President Felipe Calderon launched a militarised “war connected drugs” against almighty cartels. Rather than dismantling them, the crackdown fractured Mexico’s transgression underworld.

Alejandra Ortiz Diaz, a quality rights lawyer based successful Monterrey, a metropolis successful Mexico’s northeast, says that by targeting cartel leaders without addressing corruption oregon section economies, the authorities created powerfulness vacuums that splintered ample organisations into smaller, much convulsive groups.

“These factions turned connected 1 different — and connected civilians — successful their combat to power territory, [human] trafficking routes, and section populations,” she says.

The situation continues to deepen. In the archetypal 4 months of President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration, which began successful October 2024, approximately 4,000 people went missing — astir 40 per day.

Most of those who spell missing successful Mexico are teenage boys and young men. They vanish aft encounters with cartel members seeking to exploit oregon enlistee them, oregon due to the fact that they inadvertently witnesser transgression enactment oregon go progressive with these groups. Smaller numbers of teenage girls and young women besides spell missing. According to Ortiz, they thin to beryllium victims of rape and enactment trafficking.

When radical spell missing, “families often study that authorities bash thing astatine first,” says Ortiz.

“Courts are slow, and interagency coordination is poor, which means that adjacent erstwhile remains are found, investigations stall. Weak institutions, underfunded forensic teams, and systemic bottlenecks harvester to permission astir disappearances uninvestigated.”

As a result, families person been forced to instrumentality matters into their ain hands, forming hunt collectives to look for their loved ones.

“There’s a portion of you that wants to find something, and a portion that doesn’t,” Daniela says. “Because if I recovered thing of his, I mightiness person to look the information — that thing happened to him.”

A forensic anthropologist from Mexico City’s Prosecutor’s Office for Missing Persons shows household members that the jaw fragment she holds does not beryllium to a quality [Mark Viales/Al Jazeera]

‘He was mine’

Daniela perches connected a jagged rock. As the day airy plays connected her acheronian brownish hair, she peels disconnected her gloves and scans the brush.

A faint grin crosses her look arsenic she thinks of her son. He was affectionate and respectful, but “also had that small rebellious streak,” she says.

“As a small kid, helium couldn’t beryllium still. He’d tally each implicit the house.”

Daniela raised Axel, his older sister and his younger member mostly connected her ain successful the location they shared with her parents. He cared for his siblings and loved helping his gramps weld doors and windows. “Always curious, ever trying things out,” she says.

“But with Axel, I had to pass him: not everyone retired determination is simply a existent friend. He was excessively trusting of strangers. That frightened me.”

Saturdays were for parties oregon gathering friends successful the neighbourhood.

“He’d ever inquire for support to spell retired … but helium was clever. He’d commencement asking connected Monday for Saturday.”

Axel loved reggaeton, would walk hours perfecting his hairsbreadth and was meticulous astir his clothes, ne'er leaving the location without the light-grey hoodie Daniela bought for him.

“He had a style,” she says. “Even if we didn’t person overmuch money, helium ever recovered a mode to look sharp.”

At school, helium struggled — not due to the fact that helium lacked intelligence, but due to the fact that helium felt restless.

“He wasn’t meant for a desk,” Daniela says. “But helium had dreams. He talked astir becoming a mechanic oregon learning a trade. Something with his hands.”

At home, helium hugged his parent each day, sometimes conscionable to accidental “I emotion you” and different times to get retired of trouble.

“I ever knew erstwhile helium was up to thing — he’d food maine up first,” she laughs warmly. “But adjacent erstwhile I scolded him, helium ne'er raised his voice. He respected me. He loved me.”

Her son’s country remains mostly untouched. “His clothes, his shoes, his cologne — they’re each inactive here,” Daniela says quietly. “Sometimes I spell successful conscionable to consciousness similar he’s near.”

She pauses, eyes welling. “He wasn’t perfect. He was a teenager. But helium was mine.”

Forensic anthropologists sift done debris successful hunt of bony fragments oregon pieces of covering that could beryllium to a disappeared idiosyncratic [Mark Viales/Al Jazeera]

‘I kept seeing Axel’

It was the nighttime of June 23, 2022, erstwhile Axel stepped retired of the pistachio-green, two-storey household location successful San Miguel Ajusco, a mountainous neighbourhood connected the confederate borderline of Mexico City. He told his parent helium was heading to his girlfriend’s location nearby.

“There were rules,” Daniela says. “If you left, you had to accidental erstwhile you were coming back.”

Axel near astatine 10:30 p.m. and said helium would instrumentality wrong the hour. He wore 1 of his favourite outfits: faded bluish jeans, an orangish sleeveless vest, a cap, black-and-white sneakers helium had precocious ordered connected Daniela’s recognition card, and his grey hoodie.

Smiling, Daniela recalls however helium hadn’t asked her earlier buying the sneakers. “The transportation woman arrived and said, ‘Your lad asked for these.’ And I conscionable said, ‘Axel!’ And helium said, ‘Come on, mama!’”

Hours later, Axel inactive hadn’t returned location and wasn’t answering his phone. Daniela didn’t cognize wherever his woman lived oregon however to scope her family.

“It was a precise caller relationship,” Daniela says. “I didn’t adjacent cognize her name.”

By morning, she was overwhelmed with worry. She tried to record a missing persons report, but the constabulary told her to wait. “The constabulary said my lad had gone to a enactment and would astir apt beryllium backmost successful a time oregon two,” she explains.

As a minor, Axel’s lawsuit should person triggered an contiguous hunt nether nationalist protocol.

But it took 4 months for the constabulary to contented an Amber Alert, signalling to the nationalist and the authorities that a kid was missing and that urgent enactment was required.

In the meantime, arsenic she waited for the constabulary to act, Daniela searched the neighbourhood for immoderate clues astir Axel’s disappearance. Early each morning, she would retrace the paths helium mightiness person taken, hoping for a glimpse of him oregon a lead. Some nights, she ventured retired again, pursuing the routes helium took erstwhile helium went retired with his friends.

“I couldn’t slumber astatine night,” Daniela says, her dependable tight. “I kept seeing Axel, imagining him mislaid determination successful the city. Everyone other went connected with their lives — my household tried to support busy, distracted themselves — but I couldn’t. I was unsocial with the fear, the worry, the not knowing … everything astir maine was falling isolated portion I was stuck successful that nightmare.”

She suffered from insomnia, terrible headaches and precocious humor pressure.

A fewer months aft Axel’s disappearance, members of her extended household began to region themselves – they stopped answering her calls oregon told her she needed to judge her lad was gone. Some feared being targeted by cartels; others avoided her retired of exhaustion.

“They told maine I was obsessed,” she says.

Daniela had to take betwixt her occupation arsenic a cleaner successful a backstage location and looking for her son. She chose to support searching for Axel.

Family members of the disappeared, volunteers and members of Mexico City’s assorted authorities hunt for quality remains successful the Palmas Axotitla ravine [Mark Viales/Al Jazeera]

‘Just a mother, with a shovel’

Six months aft her son’s disappearance, and with nary assistance from the authorities, Daniela turned to a grassroots corporate she recovered connected societal media. Una Luz en el Camino (A Light connected the Path) was formed successful May 2022 by 60 families of disappeared people.

For the archetypal time, she met others similar her. There were fathers, siblings and different household members, but mostly mothers. And she realised for the archetypal clip that her acquisition was acold from unusual.

“The state’s neglect is systemic,” says Daniela.

The corporate connected her with their quality rights lawyer to enactment unit connected the authorities, portion different mothers accompanied her to meetings with the constabulary and the prosecutor’s office. Still, determination was nary follow-up — lone a proposition by the constabulary to “check the morgue”.

“They told maine my lad mightiness already beryllium dead. That I could find him there,” she explains.

Visiting the morgue — which she inactive does astir erstwhile a week — fills her with “sorrow and rage,” she says, “because the authorities failed to bash their occupation decently from the start.”

The constabulary initially restricted Daniela’s entree to her son’s lawsuit record until the corporate and its lawyer insisted that, arsenic his mother, she had the close to spot it. When she reviewed the record successful December 2022, it was astir empty. The 10 pages held nary grounds of Axel’s past determination oregon telephone activity. “They hadn’t done anything,” she explains.

“I proceed to blasted the prosecutor’s bureau [which decides erstwhile to contented Amber Alerts] for denying my lad the close to beryllium searched for,” she adds with frustration. Experts accidental the archetypal 48 hours are the astir captious for searching. “That negligence is wherefore helium inactive hasn’t been found,” she says.

In January 2023, Daniela searched for Axel with the corporate for the archetypal clip successful the wooded hills of her neighbourhood. More than 20 mothers and volunteers came. Daniela brought a plot shovel and spade, and borrowed gloves and a prima hat. She had nary protective cogwheel — nary mask, boots, oregon information helmet to shield her from the hazard of illness portion digging done rubbish oregon from falling rocks.

“I was terrified,” she recalls. “But I kept reasoning — if I don’t go, who will? I didn’t cognize what I was looking for. Just a mother, with a shovel and hope.”

Since then, Daniela has searched fields, ravines, and landfills with the collective, but she besides goes unsocial to hospitals, morgues, and adjacent prisons, pursuing each pb she finds. Her time often starts earlier sunrise, and the terrain she searches successful is usually polluted and rough. “The odor gets into everything,” she says. “Your hair, your clothes, your skin.”

She points to the photograph of Axel printed connected her T-shirt. “I spell doorway to doorway with my son’s photo, asking if anyone saw thing that night.”

She has heard rumours that a cartel abducted Axel, but she hasn’t recovered immoderate factual answers.

“I support searching,” she says. “When we spell retired arsenic a brigade, I besides assistance different mothers look for their children. We each transportation the aforesaid pain.”

Sleep offers small rest. “I aftermath up reasoning I spot him, past realise he’s not there,” she says. “I imagination of him calling me, asking for help. I ever deliberation helium is lost, suffering somewhere.

“I’ve seen conditions nary 1 should endure — similar quality bones buried successful the trash. No 1 should ever person to look for a loved 1 similar this.”

A subordinate of Mexico’s National Guard scans the perimeter of the ravine successful Palmas Axotitla for immoderate suspicious enactment successful the surrounding neighbourhood that could endanger the families and volunteers [Mark Viales/Al Jazeera]

‘Dismiss reports, hold investigations’

Ortiz, the quality rights lawyer, agrees.

She has spent years representing the families of victims. “Families shouldn’t beryllium starring these searches,” she says. “But due to the fact that the institutions are fragmented, underfunded oregon conscionable indifferent, families are forced to capable the void.

“Authorities often disregard reports, hold investigations, oregon neglect to travel up connected leads, leaving families with small recourse.”

Ortiz explains that disappearances mostly autumn into 2 categories: those successful which authorities are progressive — handing implicit individuals to cartels, covering up crimes, oregon intentionally ignoring cases — and those carried retired solely by organised crime, specified arsenic killings oregon kidnappings linked to quality trafficking, recruitment, organ harvesting, oregon to exert territorial control. The cartels progressive scope from section gangs to transnational transgression groups.

In countless cases, she says, the authorities crosses the enactment into complicity. She has handled cases successful which section constabulary person allegedly detained individuals for trivial matters and past handed them implicit to cartels. These are often assemblage members viewed arsenic obstacles due to the fact that they situation section powerfulness structures oregon garbage to cooperate with cartels.

“We person cases with telephone calls saying, ‘I conscionable got stopped by the police,’ and past the idiosyncratic vanishes. Or a witnesser says the abductors wore authoritative gear,” she explains.

Even erstwhile important grounds surfaces, Ortiz says families mostly aren’t informed. When remains are found, the cases are often bogged down successful bureaucracy, and bodies languish unexamined successful morgues. “The forensic strategy is overwhelmed,” she explains.

As of 2023, much than 72,000 quality remains were labelled arsenic unidentified by authorities morgues, according to Mexican investigative nonprofit ​​Quinto Elemento Lab. The closure this twelvemonth of the National Human Identification Center owed to national fund cuts and interior shake-ups further crippled forensic work. The centre had been processing astir 300 cases per month, aiming to trim the backlog of unidentified bodies.

Ortiz says authorities give small attraction to really locating the disappeared, alternatively focusing connected identifying idiosyncratic guiltless to blasted — a safer enactment than confronting almighty cartels oregon exposing the institution’s ain negligence.

Political unit from supra — peculiarly from section prosecutors and constabulary officials wary of exposing links betwixt information forces and cartels — besides disincentivises pursuing specified cases. Many ne'er scope the courts, she says.

“Cases are not decently investigated from the start,” she says. “Families are near waiting and searching connected their own. Families are kept waiting for months oregon years with nary answers.”

Returning a son’s remains

In the look of specified challenges, those successful the corporate punctual 1 different they are not alone. Daniela has recovered a caller household among the collective’s members.

At the children’s playground successful Palmas Axotitla, women successful their 60s stone mildly connected swings. In the ravine below, mothers successful their precocious 30s and aboriginal 40s connection each different h2o and words of encouragement earlier plunging backmost into the vigor and chaos of the search.

Alongside different mothers, Daniela has participated successful forensic and ineligible workshops supported by universities. She tin present differentiate betwixt quality and carnal bones, papers sites, and decently grip evidence. During the Palmas Axotitla search, Daniela identifies a rubbish-filled spot beneath houses overlooking the hillside arsenic a imaginable spot wherever bodies mightiness lie. She insists the occurrence brigade — who person acquisition moving successful hard terrain and negociate dense instrumentality — dig, explaining wherefore the tract makes consciousness arsenic it is beneath wherever they spotted suspected cartel lookouts.

In the ravine, a pistillate lifts retired a tiny backpack, and others stitchery close, offering soundless support. The backpack is handed implicit to the forensic specialists astatine their makeshift tables, but it yields nary clues.

Jose Soledad Diaz León, 75, searches for his niece, Josefina Avellaneda Diaz [Mark Viales/Al Jazeera]

Since 2021, hunt collectives — often with the enactment of the city’s authorities — person combed the wooded slopes of Ajusco nationalist park, successful the city’s southbound and extending into Alvaro Obregon, astir daily. These operations are portion of the broader web of citizen-led searches crossed Mexico City, targeting areas identified done anonymous tips oregon anterior discoveries. In Ajusco, respective sets of quality remains person been recovered. Authorities and activists judge that much than 100 bodies could beryllium buried successful these secluded woods.

“All that were located are present home, identified and fixed a dignified rest,” Daniela says. “Maybe present their families tin rest, too.”

She crouches and rests her hands connected her knees for a moment. Around her, household members excavation carefully, sweat streaking their faces.

“I retrieve the time we returned the remains of 1 lad to his family,” she says, speaking implicit the dependable of shovels. “His parent collapsed close determination erstwhile she saw the rotting remains of her son’s reddish shirt, successful the mediate of the work, sobbing. We each rushed to her, held her and cried together.”

The remains were aboriginal confirmed arsenic the woman’s son’s.

These are hard moments, Daniela explains, “because you think, ‘That could beryllium my child.” But she besides remembers that time arsenic “beautiful”.

“That tiny closure for a household — adjacent erstwhile you haven’t recovered your ain child, you consciousness you’ve done thing meaningful close here, successful this place,” she says.

“Sometimes, we instrumentality idiosyncratic else’s loved 1 home. And adjacent if it’s not Axel, it means the satellite to that family. And that keeps america going.”

Julieta Guerrero, 62, holds a poster of her son, Sergio Gerardo Jimenez Guerrero, 33, who disappeared connected October 20, 2023, successful Alvaro Obregon borough [Mark Viales/Al Jazeera]

Surveillance network

On the 5th time of the hunt successful Palmas Axotitla, Julieta Guerrero leans connected a cane arsenic she makes her mode towards a parkland seat overlooking the borderline of the ravine.

The 62-year-old wears a wide-brimmed chapeau implicit her shoulder-length achromatic hair. As 1 of the older household members astatine the site, she cannot descend into the ravine but has been searching done rubbish piled astatine the top.

Julieta’s son, Sergio Gerardo Jimenez Guerrero, was 33 years aged erstwhile helium disappeared connected his mode to enactment connected October 20, 2023.

Julieta’s girl tracked down video footage from adjacent businesses a mates of days aft Sergio’s disappearance. Footage showed him leaving location and getting into a bluish oregon greenish car the nighttime helium disappeared. The household traced his way up toward a tiny overpass successful the semi-rural hills of Las Aguilas, the confederate neighbourhood wherever helium lived.

When they approached the authorities, urging them to consult Mexico City’s centralised surveillance strategy (C5) for much footage, constabulary officers claimed determination were nary cameras. “It’s a federal, wooded area,” they said — meaning the city’s C5 surveillance web didn’t widen into the terrain, which lies nether national control. But Julieta’s girl went to the thoroughfare herself and recovered astatine slightest 3 cameras. Armed with nonstop addresses and camera IDs, they went to the prosecutor’s bureau — lone for the authorities to garbage to analyse erstwhile again.

“Everything’s a pretext,” Julieta says. “They conscionable didn’t privation to amusement us.”

The C5 operates tens of thousands of cameras, ostensibly to support citizens safe. But families similar Julieta’s often find the authorities unresponsive. Footage is routinely missing, cameras are “offline”, oregon the authorities assertion not to person jurisdiction.

What should beryllium a instrumentality for information has go a awesome of stonewalling, according to Ortiz.

“All excessively often, constabulary debar requesting oregon reviewing C5 surveillance footage, particularly if it could amusement the engagement of different officers successful a disappearance,” she says. “By doing that, they support their colleagues — retired of loyalty, fearfulness of retaliation, oregon corruption. In immoderate cases, officers are straight progressive with the cartels, which makes pursuing interior investigations adjacent much dangerous.”

Julieta stands successful the playground successful Palmas Axotitla [Mark Viales/Al Jazeera]

‘It’s not a canine — it’s my son’

For Julieta, the deficiency of willingness to analyse rapidly became apparent.

“The prosecutor’s bureau tells you they person 8,000 cases,” she says. “You’re fig 8,001.

“They didn’t instrumentality my son’s lawsuit seriously. They didn’t judge me.”

Despite presenting authorities with grounds they had gathered themselves — video footage, witnesser testimony, and elaborate cognition of the country wherever Sergio disappeared — Julieta’s household was ignored.

Meanwhile, Julieta has been threatened portion putting up missing-person posters of her son. She recalls 1 clip erstwhile a man, believed to beryllium connected to a section cartel, asked her, “Why are you putting up posters for your dogs?”

“I told him, ‘It’s not a canine oregon feline — it’s my son.’ Then helium said, ‘What if you disappear, too?’ And I answered: ‘Go up — what much tin you take?’” Julieta recounts.

“They already took the happening I loved most,” she says. “I’m not acrophobic of them immoderate more.”

The threats person not stopped her from searching, but the time by the ravine is simply a hard 1 for Julieta. By mid-afternoon, arsenic the day’s hunt starts to upwind down successful the blistering heat, corporate laminitis Jaqueline Palmeros calls implicit to her, hoping to connection immoderate comfort. Jaqueline, who is successful her aboriginal 40s, wears a T-shirt with the look of her daughter, Jael Monserrat Uribe Palmeros, who was 21 erstwhile she disappeared successful July 2020.

The women marque their mode to the playground obstruction opening, wherever Jaqueline takes a candle and a woody transverse from her pocket. They spot the objects connected the crushed nether the tarp and airy the candle, a quiescent motion of remembrance for the disappeared. The occurrence casts flickering shadows crossed the dirt.

‘Keep them from getting killed’

Among the constabulary and National Guard officers who spent the time scanning for lookouts is Omar Gomez Santillon.

Gomez is simply a sergeant successful Mexico City’s Environmental Protection Unit. He typically patrols protected earthy areas to forestall amerciable logging and dumping. But successful caller years, his duties person expanded to assisting families and forensic teams successful searches for the disappeared crossed the city’s forested ravines.

“Some places are truthful distant and hostile that if cartels controlling the country determine they don’t privation constabulary poking around, they mightiness crook assertive oregon adjacent marque america disappear,” says the 37-year-old. “We could extremity up thrown down the aforesaid cliffs arsenic the victims.”

Police Sergeant Omar Gomez Santillon, 37, stands connected a country successful Palmas Axotitla [Mark Viales/Al Jazeera]

“We’re determination to forestall retaliation. Sometimes the radical — cartel members oregon neighbours moving arsenic their eyes and ears successful these controlled areas — watching america from a distance, are the aforesaid ones who buried the bodies,” Gomez explains.

On aggregate patrols, equipped men person confronted his unit, and astatine times, helium feared helium could beryllium killed. But his sharpest disapproval is of the justness system. “Much of the enactment done by investigators astatine the prosecutor’s bureau [gets held up],” helium says. “Cases stall, impunity remains, and families are near waiting for answers.”

There are disposable patterns of torture connected the bodies they retrieve from clandestine graves, helium says. “We recognise the modus operandi,” helium explains. “Certain groups permission chiseled marks connected the bodies they dispose of — signs of torture, the mode they are bound, oregon however and wherever they are abandoned.

“By examining these [torture] patterns, we tin nexus cases to circumstantial transgression organisations. But adjacent erstwhile we retrieve a body, follow-up is minimal. Investigations seldom proceed to prosecution, leaving families with nary accountability and small accidental of justice.”

Gomez blames fear, burnout and organization neglect. Psychological enactment for officers is lacking. “They accidental there’s help, but you person to inquire for it privately. Most don’t — retired of fearfulness oregon shame,” helium says.

“I studied criminology. I judge successful justice. But we can’t support pretending the strategy works. Families are doing the state’s job. Most of the time, we’re conscionable determination to support them from getting killed for it.”

Mexico City authorities — the city’s Search Commission, the Attorney General’s Office and the C5 surveillance centre — did not respond to Al Jazeera’s aggregate requests for remark for this story.

Daniela clings to the anticipation of a reunion with her son, Axel, 3 years aft helium disappeared [Mark Viales/Al Jazeera]

‘Your kid is waiting’

Julieta helps organise hunt brigades. She has learned however to record lawsuit reports and get constabulary extortion — astatine slightest erstwhile conducting searches successful unsafe areas.

“We’re not investigators, but we’ve had to go them,” she reflects. “Every parent retired determination looking for the remains of their loved ones is doing the enactment the authorities refuses to do.”

Daniela sometimes finds fragments of quality remains – teeth, hairsbreadth oregon bones. These discoveries person prompted constabulary investigations and helped representation areas wherever cartels person dumped bodies, offering families faint but important leads successful their search.

Once, she recovered a brace of sneakers similar her son’s.

When she meets mothers who are caller to the collective, she urges them not to suffer hope. “Somewhere, your kid is waiting for you,” she tells them.

Each night, she lights a candle and gazes astatine a photograph of her 3 children. She clings to the anticipation of a reunion.

“I didn’t person 2 children,” Daniela says. “I had three. And 1 is inactive retired there.”

More than 100 radical gathered for a five-day hunt cognition successful May. No quality remains were uncovered successful the hunt [Mark Viales/Al Jazeera]