Thousands of Mexicans staged vigils across the nation on Friday and Saturday, condemning the circumstances surrounding the recent discovery of an “extermination camp” in the western state of Jalisco.
In Mexico City, protesters painted an outline of the grave site at Izaguirre Ranch in front of the National Palace in the historic center. Additionally, roughly 400 pairs of shoes were scattered on the ground near the outline as those in attendance lit candles and chanted slogans demanding justice.
On March 5, a search group found burnt human remains at the Izaguirre Ranch near Teuchitlán, Jalisco, along with over 150 pairs of shoes and other discarded personal items such as clothing, backpacks and handbags.
The Warrior Searchers of Jalisco, the collective of family members of the missing that is responsible for “discovering” the site, were met with enthusiastic applause when they addressed the crowd in Mexico City.
Joined by other search groups and mothers of the disappeared, the Warrior Searchers called on President Claudia Sheinbaum to meet with them to discuss the crisis of the missing.
The disappearance of persons is a crime that “has become a national nightmare,” one speaker said, adding that the extermination camp in Teuchitlán “is not an isolated event.”
There was a brief scuffle with police when several masked protesters tried to knock over the barricades surrounding the National Palace.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), as of September 2024, more than 115,000 people have been disappeared in Mexico. Calling the situation in Mexico a “human rights crisis,” HRW said that while murders fell slightly for the third year in a row in 2023, reported disappearances have increased significantly.
The Izaguirre Ranch findings were particularly disturbing because federal and state authorities had seized the site last September, but it was not until the search collective walked into the unsecured ranch on March 5 that the grisly findings were made public.
Saturday’s Day of National Mourning was convened by activists led by the “Huellas de Memoria” (Traces of Memory) group.
In addition to the protest in Mexico City, crowds gathered and placed shoes in the central squares of Chilpancingo, Guerrero; Cuernavaca, Morelos; Fresnillo, Zacatecas; Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua; Tijuana, Baja California; Oaxaca, Oaxaca; Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas; Toluca, México state; Guadalajara and Teuchitlán, Jalisco.
In Guadalajara, hundreds filled the plaza in front of the governor’s mansion, leaving a red net filled with shoes in front of the main door. Shouts decrying the failure of the state government to fully investigate the site at Teuchitlán or to make public the investigation they carried out echoed off the buildings surrounding the square. In the evening, the group held a candlelight march to the Plaza de Armas.
On Sunday, about 1,500 members of various search collectives staged a March for Peace in the streets of Teuchitlán, concluding the protest with a Mass concelebrated by eight priests from the region. The Mexican Episcopal Conference called the findings at the ranch “one of the darkest and most heart-breaking events in Mexico’s recent history.”
Also Sunday, the news magazine Proceso reported that the Warrior Searchers have filed a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) after federal authorities investigating the Teuchitlán case prevented the collective from observing the investigation.
With reports from La Jornada, Debate, Uno TV and La Silla Rota
