"The mariachi band had just struck up its first ranchera when Axel grabbed his mother's hand. Come on, mama! the lanky 16-year-old shouted, spinning Daniela beneath a canopy of paper lanterns glowing in the warm night air. The courtyard pulsed with music and laughter as cousins joined in, skirts twirling and shoes scuffing the ground."
"It is a sunny, cloudless morning in May 2025, and Daniela is preparing to lower herself some 20 metres (66 feet) into a ravine in Palmas Axotitla, a hillside neighbourhood in the borough of Alvaro Obregon. The area is a maze of flat-roofed, two- and three-storey homes tightly packed along steep streets, with narrow alleyways snaking between them. The ravine cuts through the neighbourhood, edged by houses with protruding concrete foundations and a small playground."
"The ravine's steep slopes are littered with rubbish, broken furniture and plastic bottles tangled in the dense undergrowth. Sewage collects into foul, foaming streams amid the vegetation and rubbish at the bottom of the ravine. It is a place residents avoid."
Daniela danced with her son Axel at a family wedding in April 2022; six months later Axel disappeared. In May 2025 Daniela prepared to lower herself about 20 metres into a ravine in Palmas Axotitla to search for his remains. The ravine lies in a hillside neighbourhood where flat-roofed homes crowd steep streets and narrow alleyways. The ravine is edged by houses and a small playground and its slopes are littered with rubbish and sewage. The neighbourhood is under cartel control and gangs use dead-end streets to sell drugs, recruit young men and dump murder victims. Authorities recovered human remains there in 2021. Families have led searches after authorities failed to act.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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