Over 25,000 people missing in Mexico crime wave: Official documents

Over 25,000 people missing in Mexico crime wave: Official documents
http://www.presstv.com/detail/2012/12/01/275566/25000-missing-in-mexico-violence/
Sat Dec 1, 2012 11:16AM GMT

A man holds Mexico's flag during a protest against violence in Mexico City, Wednesday, November 28, 2012.

Unpublished government documents have revealed that over 25,000 adults and children have disappeared in Mexico during the past six years.

The list which is produced by Mexico’s attorney general, but never released to the public, shows that a large of number of people have gone missing amid violence and disorder related to the Latin American nation’s war against drug cartels and crime gangs, The Washington Post reported on Friday.

The list includes the names of the missing, the dates they disappeared, their ages, the clothes they were wearing, their jobs as well as some brief details.

Mexico’s National Commission on Human Rights also says that over 7,000 people slain in the country in the past six years have lain either unidentified in morgue freezers or common graves.

Meanwhile, the government of President Felipe Calderon has come under harsh criticism as critics say that the government has failed in its attempt to quickly collect the data on the missing and hid the numbers.

“Releasing the data would add to the already deteriorating forecast about growing insecurity, and publishing such a very large number, 25,000, it just reinforces the idea that the country is violent,” said Edna Jaime Trevino, director of the think tank Mexico Evalua.

In a speech in December 2011, Calderon promised to establish a national database including lists of the missing as well as unidentified bodies. The database was slated to be ready in early 2012.

In March 2012, Mexico's congress passed a law requiring the government to create the database. The lawmakers have not published the regulations that would allow the law to be enforced yet.

Drug violence has reportedly killed more than 50,000 people since outgoing President Calderon launched an offensive against Mexico's cartels, when he took office in December 2006.

MR/AZ