Relatives of Central American migrants who vanished while chasing the American dream began on Monday a journey across Mexico to call attention to thousands of missing people cases.
A caravan of 47 fathers, mothers and siblings of lost undocumented migrants made its first stop in Tenosique, in the southeastern state of Tabasco, where a Honduran mother was reunited with her son after a nine-year separation.
Silvia Campos had an emotional reunion with her son Serbelio Mateos, now a construction worker in Tabasco with a Mexican wife and children, said Ruben Figueroa, caravan organiser from the Mesoamerican Migrant Movement.
The caravan, dubbed “Releasing Hope,” left Guatemala on Sunday and is expected to arrive in Mexico City on Tuesday.
The goal is to visit 14 of Mexico's 32 federal entities in search of lost relatives from Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador.
Around 140 000 Central Americans illegally enter Mexico's southern frontier each year in the hope of reaching the distant United States up north, according to government figures.
The Mesoamerican Migrant Movement says about 70 000 Central Americans have disappeared in Mexico in the last six years, a period that coincides with the intensification of the country's brutal drug war.
In August 2010, 72 undocumented migrants were killed in the town of San Fernando, in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, which borders the United States, allegedly after refusing to join a criminal gang.
“Since President Felipe Calderon's war against organised crime began, the deaths and disappearances of Central American migrants crossing Mexico have not been investigated, denying the right to truth and justice to their relatives,” Figueroa alleged. - AFP