Only a few torn pieces of crime scene tape remained around Lorenza Cano’s home. The glass shards from the front door have disappeared. The same goes for shell casings.
All that remains is the hope that Mrs. Cano will be found.
The 55-year-old activist is one of hundreds of women in Mexico who have become advocates for the country’s missing population after their loved ones disappeared. Ms. Cano’s brother, José Francisco, was kidnapped in 2018 and has never been found.
Now she herself has disappeared.
Last week, gunmen burst into her home in Salamanca, an industrial city in Mexico’s central state of Guanajuato, killing her husband and son and taking her away into the night.
The kidnapping highlighted one of Mexico’s most disturbing national tragedies: a crisis of disappearances.
Impunity is rampant, public security forces have been involved in some of these crimes, and clandestine graves have been discovered across the country.
Ms Cano’s disappearance has dealt a devastating blow to her community in Salamanca, where cartel warfare has sparked record violence in recent years. Local researchers are now worried about their own vulnerability.
“We are left with the question: ‘Now when will they come to get me and take me away?’” said Alma Lilia Tapia, a representative of Salamanca Unita in Search of the Disappeared, a group of 206 families searching for their children. loved ones who passed away and of which Mrs. Cano is a member.
Ms. Tapia has been searching for her son, Gustavo Daryl, since he was kidnapped in 2018 from his food stand, apron on and grill tongs in hand.
The government says more than 94,000 people are missing in Mexico, although the United Nations says the number may be an underestimate. Most cases remain unsolved, as detailed investigations are often not completed. Family members are left alone to sift through clues and follow leads in a desperate attempt to find their loved ones or, perhaps, gain closure.
“There is no protection,” Ms. Tapia, 55, said from her living room, a few blocks from Ms. Cano’s home. “We are all at risk here.” Dozens of missing persons flyers crowded her dining table. The handmade embroidery on the walls paid homage to the missing.
Violence in Guanajuato has emerged in recent years as the Jalisco New Generation cartel and the local Santa Rosa de Lima cartel battle for control of the state. According to government data, about 21,200 people have been killed in Guanajuato over the past six years, making it one of Mexico’s deadliest states.
Even those who remained to search for the missing became targets. The UN human rights office in Guanajuato documented the killing of at least five people searching for their missing relatives from 2020 to 2023.
“The search for missing people affects the interests of criminal groups, or perhaps state agents, and therefore constitutes a threat,” said Raymundo Sandoval, a member of the Guanajuato Platform for Peace and Justice, a coalition that offers support to people disappeared. families of the disappeared. Attacks on users “have an immediate inhibitory effect”.
It is unclear why Ms. Cano was targeted. She was not a high-profile activist and she mainly carried out administrative work as a hip problem prevented her from going into the field.
“Unfortunately in this case there was no clue, no threat,” said Guillermo García Flores, municipal secretary of Salamanca. “It was an absolutely amazing event.”
Last week, during a press conference, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he had no information on the case. “But every day we protect people and there is no impunity for anyone,” he added.
Volunteer researchers in Salamanca say they have little trust in local and federal officials.
“We feel offended,” said María Elena Pérez, 62, another member of the collective whose daughter, Martha Leticia, was kidnapped in 2018.
“We have no government support, no security or anything. There are times when we have to go around looking for ourselves, however we can,” she said. “We want this to change.”
Julio César Prieto Gallardo, mayor of Salamanca, defended the actions of his administration. “We give support, regardless of whether they deny it,” he said in an interview, referring to families who criticize the government’s response to the disappearances. “The doors of the municipality of Salamanca are open”.
This week, two men were arrested and charged with murder and disappearance in connection with Ms. Cano’s case.
Just five days before her kidnapping, Claudia Sheinbaum, the presidential candidate of Mexico’s ruling Morena party, held a rally in Salamanca and acknowledged the violence rampant in the region.
“Guanajuato was a prosperous and safe state. And today it ranks first in terms of homicides in the entire country,” he told the crowd. “Here, instead of making the economy grow, investments flee due to insecurity.”
Before the speech, Ms. Tapia, a representative of the Salamanca collective, climbed over a railing to give Ms. Sheinbaum an envelope with a list of demands that invited anyone elected president by the end of the year not to abandon the organization and the its mission.
Ms. Sheinbaum promised she wouldn’t, Ms. Tapia said. But those were words the collective had heard before. “It has happened to us that they take charge of the issue and then forget about us,” she said.
López Obrador’s administration has been criticized for the recount of the official register of missing persons submitted in December – an effort, the government said, to update the database and eliminate false entries. The new census has reduced the number of missing people from nearly 111,000 to around 94,000 in the national register, but critics He argued that the process was opaque.
At the end of the recount, officials said only about 12,370 people could be “confirmed” as missing, although they acknowledged that more than 62,000 cases lacked even the basic information to launch a search.
Some members of the collective recently met outside a bar in the center of Salamanca. They were looking for human remains that they said had been buried near a river.
“Our time is running out. We are getting older,” Ms. Tapia said. Bone fragments, which she identified as belonging to animals, dotted the field.
However, neither age, health problems or family pressure would stop them from doing their jobs, said Francisca Caudillo, another researcher.
Mrs. Caudillo, 50, is one of the few who has found a missing loved one. Last July she was on site when the collective found the body of her son, Martín Eduardo, from a landfill. She had been looking for him for more than two years. When his remains were finally brought home, Ms. Caudillo provided flowers, live music and fireworks to commemorate him.
“I like it when I find someone, whoever it is,” he said. “It gives me some peace knowing they are reunited with their family.”
Simone Romero contributed reporting from Mexico City and Miguel García Lemus from Salamanca, Mexico.