Why are we looking for them? Because we love them! Until I find them!
"Last year we found 11 bodies, of which 6 are already with their families but we would not want to find them like this, but alive," said Tranquilina Hernández, on November 26 at the opening press conference of the activities of the VII National Brigade for the Search for Missing Persons ?BNB?, a citizen effort that for 7 years has focused on one of the biggest crises that Mexico is experiencing.
The Brigade has made interventions in Veracruz, Sinaloa, Guerrero and Morelos, on some occasions it has returned to some of these states due to the complexity of the context.
This effort is the result of the conjunction of more than 190 groups of search families who, through the National Links Network, have built a search model based not only on tracking but also on the use of other tools, such as raising awareness among authorities. and schools, the approach to this situation from faith communities and the search while alive through penitentiary or similar institutions, as well as the identification of remains.
The search is not only the concrete fact of procuring information and data to locate people. The search is the crack that allows us to get closer to see and understand the deep networks of corruption and impunity that have run Mexico, for many decades and right now.
The search puts the accent on the great problems that afflict the country, because for the disappearance to exist, the existence of violence, human trafficking networks, criminal groups, collusion of authorities is necessary. The disappearance is the tip of the iceberg of a much larger and more complex problem.
For this reason, the searching families do not stop nor will they stop at nothing. Not even death is an impediment for the search to continue, because if a searcher is killed today, his great family of companions will continue for him until he finds the loved ones.
“The recent murder of 3 women seekers should make us demand the conditions so that all the people who seek can do so safely,” Alan García, from the Office in Mexico of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, recently declared.
At this moment, one more search brigade is being carried out in the state of Morelos, the families that participate, as well as the supportive people, carry out all these works based on the economic support that society provides through collections and some collections and raffles.
But it is still time to support this effort and make it possible for this fight to be strengthened throughout the country. In the next link it is possible to make monetary donations and the BNB makes reports of the activities it carries out to show how the money collected is used.
As the families say: Why are we looking for them? Because we love them! Until I find them!
Heriberto Paredes Coronel (Tlaxcala, 1983), Mexican freelance photographer and journalist, dedicated to documenting organizational processes in indigenous and peasant communities, the search for missing persons and environmental issues in Mexico. He currently explores formats such as documentaries and podcasts without abandoning photography and text, where he explores new narrative routes. He has collaborated with national and international media, has directed short documentaries and is currently in the development phase of a feature documentary as well as writing a book that brings together more than a decade of work on the Michoacan coast. He lives in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán. Twitter @BSaurus Instagram @el_beto_paredes.
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