Searching for the missing in Mexico’s drug wars
Thousands of people go missing each year as they try to flee the bloody drug battles in Mexico. Channel 4 News follows one woman’s desperate search to find her son.
Drugs wars have killed 40,000 Mexicans in the past five years.
But tens of thousands of illegal immigrants, known as the ‘clandestinos’ are vanished or kidnapped as they try to cross the border.
In their desperate attempts to flee the violence, many Latin Americans board a cargo train for a 1400 mile journey from the southern Mexican city of Ariaga to Tijuana on the US border.
Iris Rivera’s son Rafael disappeared on that journey two years ago. She has been searching for him since.
“My son was looking for a job but couldn’t find one.
“He had a one-year-old girl. So he decided to leave, to give her a better life.
He had a one-year-old girl. So he decided to leave, to give her a better life. We knew that people got killed on the train. But we had faith in God and we believed everything would be fine. Iris Riviera, mother of missing migrant
“We knew it was hard to get to the USA but we didn’t know about the drug gangs.
“We did know that people got killed on the train. But we had faith in God and we believed everything would be fine.”
The Mexican military routinely find headless corpses dumped along desert highways.
Six weeks ago, 183 bodies were found in mass graves.