Revealed: the full scale of Mexico’s ‘disappearances’ / The Telegraph, UK

diario19.com / The Telegraph

 

The disappearance of 43 students from the town of Iguala in September caught the world’s attention – but a greater number of Mexicans go missing every week as cartels wage their bloody battles and corruption takes its toll

 

Under Mexico‘s current president Enrique Peña Nieto, the country’s murder rate may have dropped, but kidnappings have soared.

Big drugs kingpins have been detained, but the splintering of cartels has in some cases only served to increase the lawlessness.

And corruption continues to plague the country, as exemplified by the disappearance of 43 students from the town of Iguala on September 26.

It is thought that they were seized by corrupt police on the orders of the mayor, and handed over to criminal gangs.

Of the 75 people arrested in connection to the Iguala abductions, 21 of them are police.

And while ministers claim the case had been handled with “boldness, absolute openness and transparency”, the public does not seem to agree.

Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets holding banners proclaiming: “They were taken alive, we want them back alive.”

But this single case, though tragic, is just one among countless kidnappings every day.

Across Mexico 54 people have gone missing every week since 2007, totalling 22,610 missing in eight years, as the above graphic shows.