Collectives sign agreement to search for missing persons in Chiapas

TUXTLA GUTIÉRREZ, Chis. (apro).- To address the crisis of disappearances in Chiapas, caused by criminal groups and the neglect of the previous administration in investigating cases and providing necessary assistance to families, the National Commission for the Search for Persons and the State of Chiapas signed an agreement that will contribute to the "search and location of missing or unlocated persons."

On May 10th, mothers of hundreds of missing persons will march from the municipality of Chiapa de Corzo to the capital, Tuxtla Gutiérrez. They will stop at the State Attorney General's Office and meet with families of victims of femicide in the main plaza of the Executive Branch's offices.

The agreement involves the transfer of resources in the amount of 16,338,215 pesos that the Federation sends to the state government through the Ministry of Finance; this is because the state government would have to contribute 1.6 million pesos in co-participation. This amount is equivalent to ten percent of the authorized federal budget.

This is in accordance with the Coordination and Adherence Agreement for the granting of subsidies to federal entities through their local search committees, published in the Official Gazette of the Federation on May 2 of this year.

The Chiapas State Search Commission will receive federal and state funds in two allocations: 70 percent in the first, and 30 percent in the second.

The agreement corresponds to the 2025 fiscal year. Branch 04 of the Federal Government's Budget will allocate 854.6 million pesos for searches for missing and unlocated persons, so that they can "carry out and execute searches related to forced disappearances of persons, disappearances committed by individuals, and forensic searches for human identification purposes."

Of that amount, 621.1 million pesos is the amount distributable among the states of the Mexican Republic, whose collaboration agreements with the Ministry of the Interior are beginning to appear in the Official Gazette of the Federation.

The crisis of disappearances in Chiapas

In March of this year, the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) presented the report: "Chiapas, in the spiral of armed and criminal violence (Between governmental chaos, organized crime, and the paths of struggle and resistance)."

In its introduction, the report by the organization founded by Bishop Samuel Ruiz García notes: "The great complexity of the violence Chiapas is experiencing." It also notes that "we continue to tell stories of terror and pain, in the midst of an endless war."

Frayba highlights that between 2019 and 2023, forced disappearances increased by 358 percent in the state of Chiapas. The collective attributes this to the "dispute over territorial control based on armed confrontation between criminal groups that enjoy the protection of local, national, and transnational authorities."

The current government of Chiapas, in a report from January of this year, reported through the Gender Alert 287 missing women from 2011 to January 31, 2025.

For Frayba, the disappearances "continue to be aimed at controlling the social, economic, and political life of communities through a strategy of terror, seeking to silence any possibility of social movement and territorial self-management." This situation is not new; it has been seen in other regions of the country, including Chiapas, primarily in the Sierra and Frontera regions.

Regarding "gender-based violence," the report states that the disappearance of women in the state is much higher than national rates, far exceeding the national average of 25 percent, reaching more than 60 percent, mostly affecting girls and adolescents.