· The context of disappearances in the state of Chihuahua is a problem that requires urgent and coordinated attention.

· Migrant disappearance cases show a context of macro crime at the state border.

Chihuahua, Chih., February 03, 2022. According to official records, as of today in the state of Chihuahua there are 3,464 disappeared individuals. The situation requires urgent attention, forceful measures for its prevention and resolution, as well as actions aimed at searching for the people who are still disappeared, which requires effective coordination by all the authorities.

In the meetings, the general context of disappearances throughout the state of Chihuahua was presented; mainly for collective cases – the disappearance of several people in a single criminal act – and forensic identifications carried out by the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) in coordination with the State Attorney General’s Office (FGE).

Family members had the opportunity to express their concerns regarding the lack of resources to increase the number of searches required and, above all, the need to conduct searches for living people, instead of focusing only on finding human remains. The general approach would be to start carrying out search actions in a planned and non-reactive way, leading to the correct coordination among Search Commissions; there is an interest in being able to carry out these actions in general and not only in specific cases. In addition, the need to include strategies for the search for living people and not only looking for remains was raised.

The State Search Commissioner announced that they are in the process of training and acquiring more equipment to carry out more searches in the field. The National Search Commissioner spoke of the opportunity to add to the work being done in Chihuahua and maintain regular visits with the families and organizations that represent them.

The involvement and presence of the families is paramount, it is necessary to keep them informed of the actions and allow them to accompany and be an active part of the search for their relatives; both doing tracking and distributing and managing flyers.

We hope that the agreements made during these meetings will be followed up thoroughly and committedly with the clarification and resolution of disappearances in the state.

One of the points that were addressed at the beginning of the day was the need to combine efforts in the search for the 13 migrants who disappeared while traveling to the United States. Emphasis was placed on the need to analyze the context of the case, since this will lead to a better understanding of the case and to make hypotheses that guide the search actions. Given this request, Mirian Aguilera, Prosecutor of the FEVDH, promised that this analysis would be carried out; pointing out that the resources of the Prosecutor’s Office would be made available to the CNB.

The families stated that there are clear lines in the investigation and mentioned the shortcomings at the Prosecutor’s Office to carry out efficient investigations; there was talk of a lack of will and excessive bureaucracy to mobilize resources.

The CNB Commissioner, Carla Quintana, asked the families to open up to allow a review of the individual case files to be carried out in conjunction with the Prosecution Investigative Unit (MP) to find specific information related to the hypothesis that allows proposals for joint search actions. She stressed that her main interest is to find disappeared individuals and that her efforts are focused on that, due to the nature of the work of the Commission itself, which is different from that of the Prosecutor’s Offices, which focus mainly on punishing offenders.

The agreements from this meeting were summarized in the commitment to continue with these work spaces, as well as bringing the concerns raised to the corresponding task forces.

Because the loss of the disappeared has left a void in all of us.