If you keep looking we will kill you': death stalks those searching for Mexico's disappeared

Women search marshland near power-plant cooling towers in Mazatlan, Sinaloa, for buried remains of missing people. They belong to Hearts United for One Cause, a collective among many across Mexico that locates relatives through scent and disturbed soil. The group has suffered additional violence: one searcher was murdered in February and another disappeared in October, reflecting a broader pattern where searchers are targeted after relatives vanish. Missing-person registrations have risen for two decades, surpassing 130,000, as organized crime groups recruit by force and conceal victims through burial, burning, or chemical dissolution. Governments have failed to stop disappearances, and UN findings suggest possible involvement by state security forces, which the current government rejects. Organized crime is now also eliminating those who search.

"Beneath the cooling towers of Mazatlan's power plant, in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, a dozen women pick through the marshland, looking for the upturned soil and the scent that betrays the location of a buried body. They are part of Hearts United for One Cause, one of hundreds of collectives scattered across Mexico looking for the members' missing relatives. But these searchers have been marked out by another layer of tragedy: one of them was murdered in February, and another disappeared in October."

"The number of people registered as missing in Mexico has climbed relentlessly for the past two decades, surpassing 130,000, as warring organised crime groups began both recruiting by force and burying, burning or even dissolving their victims with acid so as to conceal their crimes and sow terror. Consecutive governments have failed to stop the disappearances. A UN committee recently said there were indications of state security forces themselves being involved in some cases, describing these as crimes against humanity, though the current government rejected its report as biased."

"Now it seems organised crime groups are going a step further and eliminating the only people who truly look for the disappeared: their relatives. Skeletal remains located by the Hearts United for One Cause collective near a thermoelectric plant in Mazatlan. Photograph: Jesus Verdugo/Jesus Verdugo According to Articulo 19, a human rights organisation, at least 44 people, mostly w"

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