For those who are looking for Mexico’s missing, Mother’s Day is nothing but sorrow

There is little to celebrate for mothers whose children have been kidnapped or are missing as a result of widespread violence brought on by cartels.

It seems like yesterday that this was her last Mother’s Day. Rosa Valdés Vázquez had left the house to go to the grocery on a May morning in 2020. When she came back, her daughter Piedad was there to greet her and present her with a cake, flowers, and a red-painted wooden heart as a surprise.

Together with her two sisters, Piedad, who had taken the day off work, sung the traditional birthday song of Mexico, Las Maanitas, before starting to prepare their mother’s lunch. The four of them went to the movies and spent the afternoon in the city centre.

In a subsequent interview, Valdés observed, “It’s something you can’t forget.” “Her happiness gave us life every day.”

A few months later, Piedad was abducted by unidentified intruders after he and a companion attended a pool party. The mother and younger brother of her acquaintance were shot and killed. Piedad, her friend, and three additional people were missing.

“For me, there is no Mother’s Day until she returns, or until I at least know where she is,” declared Valdés. “Today is a day of sorrow and gloomy recollections. There is nothing to rejoice about.

For many years, Mother’s Day, which is observed in Mexico on May 10, was one of the most significant holidays in the nation. People were known to hire mariachi bands to serenade their moms in the early morning hours, while florists experienced their biggest annual sales.

However, as cartel-driven violence has engulfed the country in recent years, the event has acquired a more ominous tone. According to government statistics, more than 100,000 people have vanished in Mexico since 1964, leaving tens of thousands of mothers across the nation widowed.

Many people take matters into their own hands, digging in fields or scouring the streets for traces of corpses. Although Piedad is still missing, Valdés, a member of a group of mothers, has made two such gruesome discoveries.

She said, “At least someone has found their relative.” “At least one person will get some sleep.”

To seek justice for their missing relatives, hundreds or even thousands of women are scheduled to demonstrate in towns around the nation on Wednesday.

According to Mara Herrera Magdaleno, who has four missing sons and was instrumental in establishing a national network of collectives looking for the missing, “the mothers of the disappeared have absolutely nothing to celebrate.” We feel unheard, thus today is one of anguish, agony, and outrage.

The anniversary serves as a twofold reminder of tragedy for Luca de los Angeles Dáz Genao, who established a collective of mothers in eastern Veracruz state. First, it serves as a reminder for her own abducted son, who has been gone for almost ten years.

However, the team also received a tip on Mother’s Day of 2016 that included a map that directed them to a site that included more than 150 unmarked graves. They eventually discovered about 300 bodies.

It was referred to as a “macabre gift,” Daz said regretfully.

Since 2021, six women who led the hunt for the missing have been slain around the nation, marking a recent trend of even greater cruelty towards this movement of mothers.

The most recent, Teresa Magueyal, was killed last week, making it the second such murder in Guanajuato’s violent state in less than six months.

Valdés, who is a member of the search team “A Promise to be Kept” that Magueyal also volunteered with, said of Magueyal, “She was a very joyful person. She never stopped lifting our spirits.

As usual, Magueyal texted Valdés and the other mothers to say good morning early on Tuesday. According to local media sources, she was shot dead by two gunmen on a motorbike hours later as she was leaving her home on a bicycle.

Numerous organisations, including the United Nations, have denounced her death.

In a statement, Jess Pea Palacios, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ deputy representative in Mexico, said, “It is shocking to receive the news of another searching mother murdered in Guanajuato.” Families should be given protection and justice, not death or the unfortunate fate of passing away without learning the whereabouts of a loved one.

This final aspect of her colleague’s death has been one of the hardest for Valdés.

“It’s a different kind of love to think that one day we might leave this world without knowing anything about our relatives, especially as mothers,” she remarked. “To think it could have happened to any one of us, or that it could still happen to any one of us.”

However, risk is a constant for many searching mothers, who spend hours in the scorching sun looking for secret graves that might contain the remains of their missing children. Many operate in areas controlled by violent cartels, and death threats are widespread.

In the one of Mexico’s most violent states, Sinaloa, Mara Isabel Cruz Bernal is the leader of a search collective of about 1,000 women. According to Cruz, they have discovered more than 18,000 burned bone fragments and close to 500 victims.

She said that just eight people’s remains had been positively identified, which is a problem in Mexico where thousands of bodies remain unidentified, many of them resting in public mortuaries.

Cruz claimed that “the authorities aren’t doing their jobs.”

Cruz has faced threats to her life seven times and has survived two attempted kidnappings as a result of her work looking for bodies in a state that the Sinaloa cartel considers to be a stronghold. She started spotting young males last week who would make phone calls whenever she entered or left her home — she thinks they are cartel lookouts.

Being confined to one’s own house “feels awful,” she remarked.

Cruz raised the alert on Sunday in accordance with a protection measure for human rights activists. On Monday morning, the police arrived and detained one of the alleged lookouts, ending the surveillance for the time being.

But the fact that so many of her coworkers have passed away serves as a reminder that nobody is secure.

Cruz stated, “It affects all of us mothers who search.” It seems as though they are telling us that we might be the next victims.