Thousands of people have held protests across Mexico to highlight the country's many enforced disappearances and demand more action by officials to tackle them.
Relatives and friends of missing people, as well as human rights activists, marched through the streets of Mexico City, Guadalajara, Córdoba and other cities calling for justice and urged the government of President Claudia Sheinbaum to help find their missing loved ones.
More than 130,000 people have been reported as missing in Mexico. Almost all the disappearances have occurred since 2007, when then-President Felipe Calderón launched his war on drugs.
In many cases, those disappeared have been forcibly recruited into the drug cartels – or murdered for resisting.
While drug cartels and organised crime groups are the main perpetrators, security forces are also blamed for deaths and disappearances.
The widespread demonstrations illustrated the extent to which the problem of forced disappearances affects communities and families across Mexico.
From one end of the country to the other – from southern states like Oaxaca to northern ones like Sonora and Durango – activists and family members of disappeared people turned out in their thousands carrying placards with their relatives' faces on them, to demand the authorities do more to address the issue.
In Mexico City, the march brought traffic in the capital to a standstill, as the protest moved down the main thoroughfare.
The search groups, known as buscadores, scour the countryside and the deserts of northern Mexico, often following tips on potential mass graves.
Unfortunately, those involved in these searching efforts face significant risks, including potential disappearance themselves, as seen in the case of several buscadores who were lost after discovering a purported narco-ranch.
The United Nations has labelled the situation as a human tragedy of enormous proportions, with disappearances in Mexico now exceeding those witnessed during conflicts in Guatemala and Argentina.
