PBI-Mexico accompanies the Fray Juan de Larios Centre for Human Rights at exhumations

On October 4, the Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project tweeted, “PBI accompanies the Fray Juan de Larios Centre for Human Rights in Piedras Negras, Coahuila.”

That post adds, “We observe the days of exhumation within the framework of the State Plan of Exhumations.”

PBI-Mexico has previously noted, “In the State of Coahuila in the North of Mexico, for years hundreds of families have organised themselves in order to search for their loved ones who have been forcefully disappeared.”

On August 23, 2019, Reuters reported that 2,144 people reported missing in Coahuila have never been found. That news report adds, “The state has identified the remains of 235 missing people through digs…”

In 2017 a state law was adopted with the aim of identifying “each and every disappeared person as well as remains localized in open fields.”

In turn, that law led to an Exhumation Plan that facilitates coordination between authorities and civil society in the search for and identification of bodies.

PBI is an international observer in the Exhumation Plan.

PBI-Mexico has noted some challenges with the Exhumation Plan but has commented that it “at least [offers] a glimmer of hope within the bleak panorama of forced disappearance in Mexico.”

The Fray Juan de Larios Centre for Human Rights provides legal aid, psychological assistance and organizational support for the families of the disappeared.

PBI-Mexico has accompanied them since February 2014.