26 Women & Girls Missing, 5 Found Dead in Northern Mexico

At least 26 women and girls have mysteriously disappeared from Nuevo Leon in northern Mexico bordering Texas. Five others reported missing from the region earlier have been found dead, the Governor Samuel Garcia of the state said on Tuesday. As the country struggles with pervasive gender violence, families and authorities in Nuevo Leon are fervently searching for the missing persons.  

According to a Reuters report , during a press conference on Tuesday, Nuevo Leon Governor said that even as the search for the missing women and girls continues, he would increase funds and resources to combat gender violence .

Garcia wrote in a Facebook post , "We are working very hard to address the causes of this problem, and I will be very clear: to the rapists, and those who commit femicide, and all those who hurt the women of Nuevo Leon, know that we will find them and punish them to the fullest extent of the law." 

At the press conference, García said the Código Alba (Code Dawn) protocol would apply in the northern border state. The protocol demands "an immediate reaction" when a person is reported as missing, not just by authorities but also by gas stations, hotels, and many other civic organizations.   

Moreover, Garcia has appointed Eusebia González González , a veteran lawyer who worked in a federal agency that handled crimes against women, to tackle the crisis of gender violence formally. Garcia said, "Eusebia González González has the best profile to deal with the challenging task."   

The more than two dozen women and girls missing in Nuevo Leon include Debanhi Escobar, an 18-year-old law student who vanished on April 9. A couple of weeks before she disappeared, Escobar was among thousands of women who attended demonstrations against gender violence. Debanhi's father, Mario Escobar, said, "She went to the feminist marches because she always wanted to help people. We hope this will be a watershed moment, so no more girls, no more women go missing."   

Debanhi's family joined police officers with search dogs this week in the hopes of finding their daughter alive. At the same time, women handed out fliers offering a reward for information about the teenager's whereabouts. Maria Rodriguez, who has a 20-year-old daughter, said she had been volunteering in the search for Escobar.  "She could be my daughter," she said.  

"Alarming trend"   

In the first two months of this year, federal crime statistics show that Mexico reported 155 femicides – the killing of women because of their gender. According to a national register, the number of people listed as missing in Mexico stands at nearly 99,000 . Nearly 25,000 of them are women.   

Last week, a United Nations committee urged Mexico to tackle widespread impunity in cases of enforced disappearance. The U.N. Committee on Enforced Disappearances said that "organized crime has become a central perpetrator of disappearance in Mexico, with varying degrees of participation, acquiescence or omission by public servants."   

In a statement, the U.N. committee has urged Mexico to immediately address an "alarming trend of rising enforced disappearances" facilitated by "almost absolute impunity." It also noted that fewer than 6% of cases had resulted in prosecutions.   

While men between 15 and 40 years old are most affected, disappearances of boys and girls from the age of 12 and adolescents and women are increasing, the committee said.   

However, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has rejected the criticism. "No international organization will put us in the dock if we are acting legally, humanely – if we do not allow corruption or impunity," Lopez Obrador told the media.   

Disappearances began during the Mexican authorities' so-called dirty war against the revolutionary movements of the 1960s-1980s . The number of people missing started to soar in the 2000s with increasing drug-related violence, particularly after then-president Felipe Calderon launched a military offensive against the cartels in 2006.