Mothers search en masse for their missing children

(ARTICULO DE FACTUM DISPONIBLE EN ESPAÑOL AQUÍ)

An article written by Gerson Najera

 

Relatives and friends of victims of forced disappearance have gathered in a block to demand respect and an immediate response from the Government to the reports of disappearances.

“I ask the president (Nayib Bukele) to be empathic. What if it was his daughter who had disappeared? He would have deployed all the police by now,” said the mother of Carlos Ernesto Santos, a young man who disappeared on January 1, 2022. She is part of the Block for the Search for Disappeared Persons in El Salvador, which since last Thursday (February 17) has brought together mothers, parents and friends of victims of forced disappearance.

Carlos, 22, disappeared when he went for a run near his home, on the same day the president of El Salvador published an advertising video on his social media inviting people to go for a run to improve their health and prevent coronavirus infections .

The Block for the Search for Disappeared Persons was born due to the lack of responses from the State and due to the public stigmatization suffered by the relatives of the victims by officials, police officers who receive the complaint or the prosecutors of each case.

The first action of the block was to go to Medicina Legal (Forensics) to find out the identity of the victims exhumed in the clandestine grave of Nuevo Cuscatlán, in La Libertad, where 26 bodies have been located, as confirmed by Security Minister Gustavo Villatoro.

The initial meeting point of the block was on Gabriela Mistral Street, in a modest tea room in San Salvador, where, after reading an official statement, some mothers raised their voices for their children. “I am María Elsa Rauda and I have been looking for my son since January 7”, said the mother of Óscar Rauda, ​​a 19-year-old who was threatened by gangs and who has been missing since that date.

 

Óscar’s mother held a banner throughout the press conference that read: “We love you very much, Oscarito“. The same legend was emblazoned on her white T-shirt. She sat in front of the microphones and broke down in tears when she said: “I went 24 hours after my son disappeared. The police investigator told me that my son was already dead, that I should not look for him anymore, that I should get out of that place where I was living because I was in danger… All of us who are here want to have that coffin and say: ‘here is my beloved'”.

 

Outside the room, a bus was waiting for them, which had balloons, banners, photographs and information about the disappeared persons on its sides. They have baptized it as “the bus of miracles”, although inside of it there is an enormous tragedy, like that of the Guerrero Toledo siblings, whose photograph was accompanied by the legend: “They disappeared, they were found lifeless.”

 

The mothers and relatives of the disappeared boarded the bus. Five women sat at the end, near the exit door. In that small group were two mothers looking for their children. One of them said that she has not been able to sleep for 48 days.

“I never imagined being in this situation. A month passes, and they (Police and Prosecutor’s Office) make it an old case. Another month passes and the case is left further behind… Just as they did for the Chivo Pets , they should allocate resources for the disappeared people,” said the woman.

 

CHIVO PETS is a veterinary hospital the goverment claims will be developed with the profits from the CHIVO wallet.

 

“The life of a dog is worth more than that of a human being,” replied another mother who wore sunglasses.

 

Until October 2021, the Salvadoran State recognized 1,191 cases of disappeared persons. In a request for access to information made by Cristosal, the Prosecutor’s Office changed the category of disappeared and replaced it with the term “voluntary absences“. So far in 2022, according to Zaira Navas, Cristosal’s lawyer, the institution has not responded to requests for access to public information on this issue.

The mothers arrived at the Government Center, between the Supreme Court of Justice and one of the entrances to the Legislative Assembly. A policeman allowed a person to enter the morgue. Miriam Elizondo entered, a mother who since June 4, 2011 has searched the entire country for her son, Josué Eliezar Elizondo.

The Salvadoran authorities have been working in the clandestine grave in Nuevo Cuscatlán since last November. The remains of the Guerrero Toledo brothers and the soccer player Jimena Ramírez were found there. Both cases were widely publicized because they put the issue of forced disappearances on the national agenda in the second half of 2021. For Miriam Elizondo, it cannot be ruled out that there are victims from other municipalities in that grave. And although she recognizes that her case is more complex because many years have passed, that does not stop her search.