Benito Guevara Arcos, an elderly Mexican man, was last seen in San Vicente, a locality in the rugged mountains near Chilpancingo. In March 2026, the preacher and evangelical pastor — who traveled through rural communities to share his faith and distribute Bibles — vanished in this remote spot within the violent state of Guerrero, where criminal gangs battle for territory, leaving a trail of blood and destruction in their wake.

The State Search Commission for Missing Persons posted flyers featuring the pastor’s photograph throughout the city of Chilpancingo and conducted searches along some of its streets. And that was it. Some of those who go missing are found days later — their skin and clothing riddled with bullet holes — discarded in a ditch. This was the fate that befell Catholic priest Bertoldo Pantaleón Estrada in 2025.

The problem of disappearances in Mexico is immense. According to the National Registry of Missing and Unlocated Persons, there are 67,242 such cases — a figure accumulated between October 2018, when the socialist Andrés Manuel López Obrador assumed the presidency, and October 2026, with his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, now in power. Both have implemented a policy of “hugs, not bullets” in response to organized crime.

The crisis of missing persons in Mexico has made for a difficult year for the public image of the first woman to lead the country. Is it malice, collusion, or simply incompetence? In May, a report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) urged Mexico to take action to address what it described as a “serious” and “widespread” crisis of disappearances — a crisis exacerbated by violence, the complicity of certain authorities with organized crime, and “structural impunity.”

By the end of this month, tensions resurfaced — this time between the U.N. Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) and the Sheinbaum administration, according to the Associated Press. Recently, this United Nations body — which generally tends to favor leftist governments — not only issued a critical report on the situation in Mexico, but its leader, Juan Pablo Albán, also raised questions regarding the 16,000 individuals whom the Mexican government claims to have located in 2025.

On his X account, Albán stated, “It is important to know who these located individuals are and whether they have been returned to their families,” adding that “more than 120,000 people remain to be found, and efforts in this regard must continue.”

The DEA and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York have sought the arrest of several Mexican political figures due to their alleged ties to drug trafficking — among them, the governor of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha Moya, and official Dámaso Castro Saavedra.

And how has Sheinbaum responded? She has retreated into a nationalist narrative centered on the principle of non-interference — a hallmark of the Latin American left. Framing her position as a “defense of national sovereignty,” she has rejected requests for extradition.

Most remarkably, in the face of a crisis and the rampant corruption consuming the country, Sheinbaum — during a session of the United Nations General Assembly this week — rejected assistance offered by the CED. That entity proposed invoking Article 34 — for the first time in U.N. history — with respect to Mexico; this article establishes an extraordinary international alert mechanism for situations where there is suspicion that disappearances are occurring on a widespread scale within a country.

“This decision is by no means a sanction against Mexico; on the contrary, it is an offer of international assistance regarding search efforts, investigations, uncovering the truth, addressing the forensic crisis, and providing protection for victims and their families, among other measures,” explained Aarón Lara, speaking on behalf of the Ibero-American Congress for Life and Family — a group of Hispanic-American conservative leaders — in comments accessed by The Washington Stand.

“However, Mexico vehemently rejected any form of assistance, arguing that the situation regarding disappearances is not caused by the Mexican state, but rather by organized crime groups, and that the Mexican government is doing everything necessary to confront this scourge,” Lara noted. “As its greatest achievement, it announced that 16,000 of the 136,000 missing persons have been located.”

For Lara — who is himself Mexican — the Mexican government’s stance is “incomprehensible.” He pointed out that there are more than 72,000 unidentified bodies in forensic medical facilities, as well as thousands of clandestine graves across virtually the entire national territory.

“We denounce this negligent attitude of the Mexican government in refusing international aid during the greatest crisis of disappearances in our country’s history,” he said. “At the U.N., the Mexican government even requested that the Mexican advocacy groups — who had come to witness the proceedings — be removed from the room. Such behavior is inhumane.”

Once again, the question arises: What motivates Sheinbaum's elusive attitude? Is it malice, collusion with organized crime, or simple shame at his own inefficiency? While the question floats through a country with more than 130 million inhabitants, rivers of blood and absences from home continue to mark the daily lives of ordinary Mexicans.