Mexico surpasses the grim milestone of 100,000 missing people

The cry of mothers looking for their missing children 3:21

(CNN) --

Mexico officially registered more than 100,000 missing persons, according to data from the National Registry of Missing or Unlocated Persons of the Ministry of the Interior.

From 1964 to date, the country counts more than 100,023 disappeared, of which more than 24,700 are women and more than 74,700 are men.

The gender of 516 people is unknown.

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The figure increased by more than 20,000 people during the last two years, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior.

Cases of the disappeared skyrocketed in 2006 as drug-related violence increased.

More than 97% of disappearances whose date is known occurred after December 2006, according to the UN.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, said in a statement Tuesday that only 35 of all recorded disappearances have led to the conviction of their perpetrators.

Recent data from the Mexican Ministry of the Interior joins the outrage and urgent calls to improve search and rescue systems.

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Bachelet urged the Mexican authorities to redouble their efforts.

In this sense, he said that "no effort should be spared to put an end to these human rights violations and abuses of extraordinary magnitude, and to claim the rights of the victims to truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition." ".

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Regarding the human trauma suffered by families of missing persons, Marlene Herbig of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a press release: "The first few hours are the most important. When someone goes missing, their relatives they have the right to know what has happened. Knowing the fate of the disappeared is primarily a humanitarian act."

Despite the figures, Bachelet highlighted the progress made by the Mexican government, acknowledging that it is the first country that allows the visit of the UN Committee against Enforced Disappearances to work with the authorities of 13 states.

Both the ICRC and the UN have called for relatives to be allowed to work with government authorities in the search for their loved ones.

According to a statement to the media, Michele Bachelet called on the government "to put the families of the disappeared at the center of its efforts, and to make available the necessary resources for the investigations and searches to be effective."

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