Desaparecidos

25,000 Have Gone Missing in Mexico

In the past six years.

Mexico’s attorney general has compiled a list of more than 25,000 people who are missing in Mexico over the past six years of the country’s violent war against drug mafias and crime gangs. There have also been at least 100,000 homicides during Felipe Calderon’s presidency, which ends on Saturday. The list was released by officials frustrated by the failure of the government to investigate the cases and a lack of transparency, although it has not been published by the government. Calderon’s spokesperson did not say why the numbers had not been released earlier in his presidency. One man whose brother criticized the government’s decision not to publish the list said, “to release these figures would show that their strategies had failed, and they had failed us.”