Mother's Day in Mexico: Time to Reflect on Missing Children David Agren - USA Today
go to original May 10, 2013

Mothers take part in a protest in Mexico City May 10, 2013. A group of mothers and relatives of children missing due to the drug war in the country, demand to the Government the investigation of the crimes. (Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty)

MEXICO CITY - Maria Elena Salazar has searched tirelessly for her son, Hugo Marcelino Gonzalez, who disappeared one morning 3 1/2 years ago while heading to his technical support job in the northern Mexican city of Torreon.

No ransom demand was ever made. The mother of three says authorities have shown little interest in finding Hugo, who was 24 when he vanished.

So she like many other parents in Mexico carry out their own searches in the hope that they can provide to police some clues about what happened to their loved ones in a country where tens of thousands of people are missing in the wars against drug cartels.

"We've done the investigation," she says. "The case file is thick now, but it's all information we've provided."

Hundreds of mothers like Salazar and the relatives of missing persons marched through central Mexico City on Friday, marking Mexican Mother's Day - an event considered almost sacred south of the border - with demands that the federal government take the cases of their loved ones seriously.

Some of the protesters also started hunger strikes to demand action.

Read the rest at USA Today

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