MEXICO CITY

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced a series of reforms on Monday aimed at addressing the mass disappearance crisis plaguing Mexico.

Sheinbaum presented the reform package during her routine morning briefing, just days after the discovery of a massive underground burial site and extermination camp linked to drug cartels in Teuchitlan, Jalisco, a northwestern state and one of the leading states in the number of disappearances throughout the country.

In the last six years, a person has gone missing every hour in Mexico. As of today, more than 116,000 people are reported as disappeared in the country.

In early March, a group of civilian organizations dedicated to searching for missing persons, known as "seekers," reported the discovery of a mass burial site on a ranch in Teuchitlan.

The 10,000-square-meter site was found to conceal multiple incinerators and the discarded remains and belongings of up to 200 people.

Investigations revealed that the “ranch” was used as a safehouse, training center, and extermination camp for the New Generation Jalisco Cartel (CJNG), a powerful force in Mexico’s underworld, where people kidnapped by the cartel were forced to join its ranks.

On Monday, Sheinbaum pledged to take action on the mass disappearances in Mexico through the proposed reforms.

"For the Government of Mexico, addressing the issue of disappeared and unlocated persons is a national priority. It is also crucial to uncover the truth behind these events and deliver justice to the victims and their families. I have always maintained this throughout my life, and as President, I continue to do so: I will always stand by the victims and seek justice," she said.

The planned reforms will mobilize resources and officials to strengthen institutions dedicated to preventing and investigating disappearances, such as the National Commission for Searching and the National Center for Human Identification.

The reforms aim to create a universal system for recording personal and biometric data, such as fingerprints, and ensure coordination between the prosecutors' offices of all 32 states in cases of disappearances. Additionally, they seek to establish a single identity document for all Mexicans to facilitate the search process.

Another key reform will implement new protocols by law to accelerate the search process or ensure an immediate response, as currently, there is a 72-hour waiting period before a person can be officially reported as missing.