MEXICO CITY – On the outskirts of the Mexican capital, in the thick forests of the Ajusco mountain and the extinct volcano Xitle, Ana Ameli’s 75-year-old grandmother prepares for another painstaking search for her missing granddaughter.
She will scratch and claw at the earth for hours, weeks, months — as long as it takes. Through several long hours, her small hands will work tirelessly as she looks to uncover bones, fragments, clothing, anything that could reveal what happened to Ana Ameli.
“I can feel her nearby. I believe she’s still alive,” Lucrecia Franco Pavón says, looking up to the nearby hills. “I’ve had dreams of her alone in a corner, scared, but alive. I can feel her pulling on my backpack."
Franco Pavón is among thousands of relatives searching for missing loved ones across Mexico. Since the government declared war on drug cartels in 2006, the number of the disappeared has reached more than 130,000 people and counting. Families say authorities have not adequately acknowledged and acted, leaving them with nothing but grief, anger, and a deep sense of abandonment.
Nothing, that is, except the old shovels, picks, rakes, and rods that relatives bring to the searches. The searches are commonplace across the country. Relatives say they’ve been left to do this alone and have all but given up hope that authorities will help.
“These disappearances shouldn’t exist,” says Vanessa Gamez, mother of Ana Ameli, who disappeared on July 12, 2025, while on a hiking trip. “We know that there is crime in any country. But a disappearance is one of the most terrible crimes imaginable.”
An uncomfortable reminder of the missing
As Mexico hosts World Cup matches for a record third time and welcomes millions of fans for the tournament and its festivities, families of the disappeared are making their voices heard, at times, even taking the spotlight. Mothers searching for their missing children are determined not to be forgotten or ignored.
They come from states throughout the country, including Tamaulipas and Chihuahua, bordering Texas and cities near the capital. Several collectives, including Madres Buscadoras (Searching Mothers), plan to continue using the global spotlight to draw attention to their cause through mass protests outside soccer stadiums.
They offered a preview of that strategy at the Mexico City
stadium during the tournament's opening
match. Although police prevented women from approaching the venue, they gathered nearby, drawing the attention of journalists covering the event. Wearing Mexico's national team jerseys, they held signs and
photographs with the faces of their missing loved ones.
In the shadow of the stadium, their voices broke through the festive atmosphere as one woman’s cry rang out over a microphone: “Negligent government, give us back our children.”
The contrast between celebration and tragedy has surfaced elsewhere as well. Recently, Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City’s iconic thoroughfare, became a gallery of grief, lined with posters of the missing. A viral video captured the stark divide: soccer fans seeking shelter from a sudden summer downpour were filmed tearing down a banner displaying photographs of the disappeared and using it as a makeshift shield from the rain, despite the protests of mothers looking for their loved ones.
A void where there should be answers
Ana Ameli was a 19-year-old biology student at the Autonomous University of Mexico, the nation’s largest public university. She had recently decided to study physical therapy and fulfill a dream of helping people.
According to her family, she vanished last year during a summertime hike up to the Pico del Águila, the highest peak in the Ajusco mountain range, which rises more
than 12,800 feet above sea level. The summit, known for its sweeping views of Mexico City and the nearby Iztaccíhuatl and Popocatépetl volcanoes, is popular destination for hikers. Her friends were supposed to meet her at the mountain but didn’t show up.
Her family believes Ameli decided to ascend alone and eventually reached the summit, where she sent her father photographs of herself smiling, enjoying the view, and of people she had met along the way. She is thought
to have descended alone. She has not been seen since.
“We don’t know if she’s being violated, we don’t know what conditions she’s in, if she’s dead or not, it’s terrible, it's inhumane,” Gamez says.
Left alone to search and grieve
One of Mexico City’s largest searching collectives, Una Luz En El Camino – A Light On The Path – was founded in 2021 by Jacqueline Palmeros, after the disappearance of her 21-year-old daughter, Jael Monserrat Uribe.
As she began searching, Palmeros says, she quickly realized the government’s support would be unreliable.
“There was a system that was negligent, omissive, indolent, and corrupt,” Palmeros says. “It didn’t work for the search and rescue of missing people in Mexico City, nor for the whole country”.
After years of conducting her own investigation and participating in searches, Palmeros found her daughter. All that remained was her skull and two fragments of vertebrae, found in the same Ajusco range where Ameli’s
grandmother and search collectives continue combing the terrain. The frustrations Palmeros describes continue to shape the experiences of families whose searches are still ongoing.
International scrutiny on Mexico
The crisis has generated international condemnation. The UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances warned the government’s failures could amount to crimes against humanity, citing what it described as widespread and systematic attacks against civilians all over the country.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has pushed back against calling the disappearances a national crisis, even though her administration has delayed releasing updated statistics on the disappeared.
Still, the Comisión Nacional de Búsqueda – National Search Commission – established in 2018 to coordinate search efforts, says there’s been some progress.
“I think we are setting an example of a model that can work for the country,” says Luis Gomez, a senior official overseeing Xitle-area searches.
“It’s a system where all institutions participate, families are involved, and searches can begin within hours of disappearances.” Families searching for their loved ones say the system has simply failed, forcing them to go it alone.
“Don’t play with our pain,” Gamez says. “We are living through a human crisis, with forced disappearances and cases where the government is directly involved.”
Despite the challenges, the collectives remain committed and say they will continue pressing their demands.
Organizers say their protests during World Cup matches don’t seek to block access to the games or disrupt the tournament. They only want one thing: the eyes of the world to finally see what they have endured for years.
“People coming to the World Cup should know Mexico isn’t safe,” Gamez adds. “If you disappear or if something happens, they won’t look for you, they won’t find you.”
This article is published in partnership with the Puente News Collaborative, a bilingual nonprofit
newsroom that covers stories from Mexico and the
U.S.-Mexico border. KTEP News is a founding partner of the collaborative. Reporter Angelo Claure is a graduate student at UC Berkeley Journalism.
