When two Australian brothers drove from San Diego to Mexico’s northwest coast with their American friends last week, they hoped to catch the crisp waves that have made Baja California such a popular destination for travelers from around the world.
But soon after arriving in the Mexican city of Ensenada, Callum Robinson’s Instagram posts about his surfing adventure stopped. The group stopped answering calls and text messages.
Their mother posted on social media that he and his brother Jack never showed up at the Airbnb they booked and pleaded for help from anyone who had seen her two sons.
On Sunday, Mexican authorities announced that the bodies of three tourists found at the bottom of a well with gunshot wounds to their heads had been recovered. Confirmed by his family.
Authorities said the men were killed during a carjacking and the suspect was taken into custody within days of the men’s disappearance. More people are under investigation.
It’s a tragedy for a case that attracted international attention, but somewhat quickly.
However, for many local Mexicans, rapid response from authorities In a country where tens of thousands of missing persons cases have remained unsolved for years, the finding and arrest of the Robinson siblings and American Jack Carter Lord appeared to be an exception.
The government said in March that about 100,000 people were missing in Mexico, but the United Nations said that number was likely an underestimate.
“Except for high-profile cases like the one that just happened, it’s very difficult for the authorities to immediately launch a search,” said Adriana Jaén, an Ensenada sociologist who provides advice to people looking for missing people. Legal, emotional and logistical support. Their missing relatives.
Federal and state officials in Mexico tend to claim that violence levels have dropped, although official data contradicts them.Local authorities themselves were involved in the disappearances – in Baja California, police in the city of Ensenada recently charged The disappearance of a man. There is also a lack of investigative resources.
So when a case seems to be getting special attention, it’s noticeable.
“The message to those of us working on these issues is that there are lives that matter,” Ms. Hahn added, “but there are also lives that don’t matter.”
According to statistics, there are more than 17,300 active disappearance cases in Baja California. government data Provided to Elementa DDHH, a human rights organization that studies disappearances in the state.
In many cases, it is unclear whether the missing person has been found; whether they were the victim of a crime; and, if so, whether anyone has been arrested. The government recounted some cases that lacked even basic information to begin a search. disappeared last year.
“We don’t know exactly how many people are missing and how many have been found,” said Renata Demichelis, Elementa DDHH’s Mexico director. “The authorities didn’t tell us.”
However, available data hint at the scale of the problem.
In 2017, state prosecutors opened approximately 760 disappearance investigations in Baja California. In five years, this number has more than tripled, According to Elementa DDHH.
“This is an ongoing phenomenon that is growing exponentially,” Ms. Demichelis said, adding that several factors contributed to the exacerbation of the missing persons crisis in Baja California, such as drug trafficking, internal displacement, migration and gender Violence.
The state’s attorney general, Maria Elena Andrade Ramirez, said in an interview that prosecutors have so far ruled out the possibility that the killings of the Robinson brothers and Mr. Rohde were linked to organized crime.
She said the person responsible tried to impound the tourists’ pickup truck. When they resisted, a man pulled out a gun and killed them.
“This attack appears to have occurred in an unforeseen and accidental manner,” Ms Andrade Ramirez said. “When they saw the vehicle in that remote open area, they took advantage of it. They took the opportunity because they knew there were no witnesses.”
At a news conference this weekend, a reporter asked Ms. Andrade Ramirez if she needed to be a foreigner in Baja California for state authorities to act as quickly as they did on cases of missing tourists.
“Each investigation has its own procedures,” the attorney general responded. “Sometimes we have to take care of every detail, and that takes time to get a good result.”
After the victims’ families identified the bodies at the morgue on Sunday, local resident Adriana Moreno said she had conflicting emotions.
“I’m glad they found them so quickly. That’s my joy, my satisfaction,” said Ms. Moreno, 60. She has been searching for her son, Víctor Adrián Rodríguez Moreno, since 2009, when he and two of his colleagues, employees of an import company kidnapped Located in the northern state of Coahuila.
“But 15 years after my son disappeared, there is nothing,” Ms. Moreno said. “They made me realize the importance of missing people.”
