Disappearances of minors in northern Mexico have risen as a result of the conflict between the Chapos and the Mayos. Teenagers from Durango, for example, travel to neighboring states lured by false job offers; they are recruited and then disappear in Sinaloa, according to search collectives.
Carmen Rosario Soto Valles, founder of the collective Buscando Emilios—named after her brother Emilio, who has been missing since 2008 in Sinaloa—explains that they also face a lack of coordination among state prosecutors’ offices in carrying out search efforts.
“Yes, we are seeing an increase in the disappearance of minors. Unfortunately, they are being recruited and taken to armed confrontations in both Sinaloa and Zacatecas. There has been a significant rise—we’re talking about children between 13 and 17 years old. I have two cases of 13-year-olds, another of 14, one more of 15, and one of 17. It’s tragic, and it’s increasing,” she said in an interview with La Silla Rota.
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Families who report these cases to authorities are often revictimized. The response they receive is that they are responsible for failing to properly care for their children. “That’s what they said about Rafael—a minor whose case we handled—they declared at the Durango Prosecutor’s Office that it was due to neglect.”
She clarified that adults from Durango do not disappear in Sinaloa only for work-related reasons. The organization has documented other cases of people who travel there as tourists and are later disappeared.
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“There is a terrible lack—you can’t imagine the absence of coordination among prosecutors’ offices in the states where we’ve been working: Durango, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, and Zacatecas.”
In addition to Sinaloa and Zacatecas, people from Durango also disappear in Chihuahua and within their own state. In Durango—part of the “Golden Triangle” drug trafficking region, along with Sinaloa and Chihuahua—a high number of disappearances is reported in Santiago Papasquiaro, the Laguna region, and the state capital.
“This hadn’t been seen before, or it was very well hidden, but many cases are now being recorded. It started about a year and a half ago, when the war in Sinaloa began. And in Zacatecas, they are also lured by job offers,” she added.
The supposed job offers are often for agricultural work. “I have two minors recruited for Zacatecas through false job offers. One of them managed to call his mother and say, ‘Mom, I still have my phone—they haven’t noticed. They brought me here, and I just managed to read a sign that says “Welcome to Zacatecas.”’”
The situation has not changed
Carmen Rosario believes that since she began searching for her brother, little has changed in the search for the disappeared. Authorities even avoid entering certain areas, claiming they are conflict zones.
Disappearances in her home state are a long-standing crisis, hidden for years behind incomplete case files, institutional omissions, and the burden carried by families.
“In Durango, searches don’t move forward due to lack of investigation and the absence of effective protocols. Cases get lost in paperwork, not real investigations,” she explained.
This indifference is not unique to Durango.
“There are matches with forensic services that are never reviewed, unidentified bodies that families are never notified about. Right now, I have a case of a young man who spent a year in the Sinaloa Forensic Medical Service, and we were only notified last week.”
In nearly 18 years of searching, she has identified a serious structural failure: the first 72 hours are often lost, with no activation of search protocols during that critical period. This is compounded by hundreds of case files with no investigative leads.
Criticism of the federal government
Soto Valles also criticized the stance of Mexico’s federal government, led by President Claudia Sheinbaum, for rejecting a United Nations report highlighting the severity of disappearances and equating them with crimes against humanity.
“The position taken by the presidency bothers me personally because they talk about numbers,” she said, referring to the government’s breakdown of 132,000 recognized cases, of which only 43,128 were acknowledged as having sufficient data.
“These are not numbers—they are our relatives. They don’t talk about families or human beings,” she said.
“There has been no change—I say this based on nearly two decades of experience. There has been no change,” she emphasized. She also pointed out that even within the recognized cases, only 3,869 have a formal investigation file.
“That means prosecutors’ offices that don’t investigate, incomplete records, institutions that revictimize, and a state that tries to justify its absence with manipulated statistics.”
She recalled that when her brother disappeared, there was no specialized prosecutor’s office for forced disappearance. Although such offices now exist, in Durango they are only now becoming specialized.
“It’s the same—they take the report and that’s it. There are no investigative actions. What good are a national search commission and an executive commission if there are no results, no searches, nothing?”
She returned to the case of the young man who spent a year in Sinaloa’s forensic service without his family being notified. Because he was wearing camouflage clothing, the state search commission refused to help return his remains to Durango.
“They say he died in a confrontation, that he was a criminal, that he belonged to organized crime, and that they cannot help in those cases. How is it possible they say that to a family?” she questioned.
The young man’s aunt is the one claiming his remains because his mother has died and his father struggles with addiction.
“How is it possible to revictimize them again? What is the point of creating these institutions if they don’t support us?”
The case of Pedro Emilio
Regarding her brother, Carmen Rosario recalled that he disappeared on December 11, 2008, in Mazatlán, Sinaloa.
He was working in the fields, preparing land for jalapeño crops, when he refused to pay extortion demanded by criminal groups and was abducted. From that moment, his sister began a search that would forever mark her family.
“Nearly two decades have passed, and despite going through countless prosecutors, experts, and institutions supposedly created to address disappearances, there is not a single real line of investigation that could determine his whereabouts.”
Pedro Emilio was 23 when he was taken.
“Today he would be 41, but 18 of those years have been consumed by a painful absence, a waiting that becomes more cruel with each passing day. His disappearance is not just a forgotten file—it is an endless agony for those of us who love him and continue to demand that the state fulfill its duty to search, investigate, and tell us where he is.”
A national crisis
Disappearances of minors occur within a broader national context in which Mexico exceeds 132,000 missing persons, according to official figures.
Of those, only 3,869 cases have formal investigation files, highlighting the level of impunity.
In this context, collectives warn that the disappearance of minors is no longer an isolated phenomenon, but part of a pattern linked to forced recruitment by criminal groups.
Experts point to policy failures
Specialists say authorities have failed to respond to the scale of the crisis, which continues to grow.
In Mexico, public policies to address forced disappearances have been insufficient given the magnitude of the problem, said Marisol Méndez, advocacy coordinator at Fundación para la Justicia.
“The measures have been insufficient and have shown no results to date. What indicator do we have? Disappearances are still happening,” she said.
One alarming issue, she added, is that official figures appear to minimize the impact of more than 132,000 missing persons by presenting only a portion as fully documented.
“The people searching for them are their families—not the authorities responsible for doing so,” she stressed.
UN raises alarm
On April 2, the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances requested that the United Nations consider measures to support the Mexican government in preventing, investigating, and eradicating this crime, which has reached levels that could be considered crimes against humanity.
“It is the first time the Committee has used this mechanism—not even in countries at war,” Méndez noted.
She explained that this action alerts the UN General Assembly that disappearances in Mexico are widespread and systematic.
The report, initiated in 2012, documents critical deficiencies in public policy and a serious lack of forensic investigation.
Lack of funding and impunity
Méndez highlighted several key issues, including insufficient budgets for search commissions and specialized prosecutors.
“They must have enough funding for immediate searches and investigations, but another major issue the Committee highlights is the lack of investigation and impunity,” she said.
She warned that absolute impunity in disappearance cases sends a message to perpetrators that they can continue without real consequences.
“The Committee also points to the involvement not only of criminal groups, but also authorities at all levels, suggesting absence or tolerance by officials.”
This implies that disappearances cannot occur without the knowledge of municipal, state, or federal authorities, and the Committee has identified cases involving official participation.
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