Mexico denies involvement of officials in enforced disappearances crisis

MEXICO CITY

Mexico said Wednesday that officials, including in the military, are not involved in the enforced disappearances crisis, which has plagued the nation for years.

As the number of enforced disappearances continues to grow, now surpassing 120,000 cases, the government maintains that security agencies are not complicit in the crisis.

The interior and foreign ministries said the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances latest report lacks "foundation" in its assertions against the Mexican government.

The committee had announced inquiries into the government's response to the relentless rise in missing persons cases.

“Mexico reiterates its rejection of the notion that there are systematic and generalized forced disappearances carried out by the State in our country, and any such indication or insinuation is unacceptable,” according to a statement.

Mexican security agencies, however, have repeatedly been implicated in high-profile cases of mass disappearances. One is the enforced disappearance of 43 students in southeastern Mexico in 2014. More recently, during an investigation into an extermination site linked to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel that was used to kidnap and disappear young men. Former military personnel were reportedly found to be involved in the kidnapping and disappearance operation.

In the last six years, approximately one person has gone missing in Mexico every hour. While authorities have yet to implement effective legal and security measures to curb the crisis, the government continues to dispute the figures reported by civil associations and independent researchers, which estimate at more than 120,000.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said her administration is working on an updated and official figure of disappearances.

“We will explain it in due time. I’ve said it before at press conferences: the figures on missing persons come from different sources; some come directly from a platform where people upload information to the Search Commission,” she told reporters Wednesday.