Thousands of people in Mexico took to the streets in nationwide vigils for the many missing people in the country.
Demonstrators in cities across the country laid 400 pairs of shoes and 400 candles on the ground. This was a reference to the recent discovery of hundreds of shoes and clothing believed to have belonged to possible victims of a drug cartel on a ranch in the west of the country.
Posters read slogans including “Mexico is a mass grave” and “We demand answers.”
In Mexico City, the rally took place in front of the National Palace, the official residence of President Claudia Sheinbaum.
According to local broadcasters, vigils were also held in cities such as Guadalajara, Puebla, Veracruz, Cancún and Colima.
More than 124,000 people are officially listed as missing in the country.
At the beginning of March, a collective of relatives of the disappeared found numerous shoes, items of clothing and bone fragments at the Izaguirre ranch in the municipality of Teuchitlán in the western state of Jalisco.
The group has said it believes the clothes and bodies belong to disappeared people and that the ranch was used by a drug cartel as an operations centre where kidnapped people were forcibly recruited and killed.
The discovery of burnt human remains was officially confirmed. Following the discovery, Sheinbaum ordered an investigation since the ranch had already been searched and confiscated by the police in September but no evidence was collected.
