Wait in the torturous agony for the hope that took the followingnoon in silence. The inexpressible absence, where there is no metaphor, is experienced by Doña Catalina like a bucket of cold water on her cartilage, leaving a stream of sadness, watching the sun dissipate on the horizon from the edge of the stony hill of San Isidro, annex of Santa María Tonaya, municipality of Tlapa.
The evening passed with the noise of the birds, the noise of the cars and the daily chores of the family. The gloomy January 12, 2023 had begun at six in the followingnoon, when the girl Me’phaa Bathaa Esmeralda Genaro Camilo, 7 and a half years old, was lying in bed wearing a red blouse. She stared at the ceiling without blinking, there were no words. In her communication, her sisters or her mother, Doña Catalina, helped her because she might not support herself in this world. Her older sister is the one who supports her when her mother is not there to dress her or feed her. This time the same thing happened when her sister changed her pants. Her mother took the opportunity to go pick up the clothes that she had hung out in the patio, then she went to the kitchen to cook food and wash the dishes. After a few minutes she saw that the girl was standing at the door of the house. She was wearing the same red top with a Minnie print and red pants. Doña Catalina did not imagine what was regarding to happen, so she continued with her daily activities.
At 7 pm the shadows of time fell on the roof of the adobe house. The presentiment of a bad omen and the song of the owl made Doña Catalina go up regarding 15 meters to her house to hug her Esmeralda girl. She was no longer at the door, but neither was she in her room. She began to inquire with her two eldest daughters, but they might not give a reason for her whereregardings. Her grandmother, Juana, did not notice anything.
Concerned, Mrs. Catalina began to look for it under the bed, in the corners of the house, she went out to the patio, looked at the hill and went around it more than 20 times, but might not find it. She felt afraid, but the hope of finding the whereregardings of her daughter was a few steps away, in the house of the community commissioner, Don Daniel Barrera, who quickly looked for her, but there was nothing.
Don José Faustino, Esmeralda’s father, went to look for the communities from Juanacatlán to San Juan Puerto Montaña, and notify the community authorities so that they would announce through a horn to the inhabitants if he saw his daughter and provide him with information. He returned to his house at 10:00 p.m. without news. At 11 pm he arrived in Tlapa to notify the municipal police that his daughter “had been lost.” The municipal authorities took note, but did not mobilize.
The desperate searches for Doña Catalina, along with her two daughters, continued in the ravines, hills, and neighbors’ houses. It would have been one in the morning when they decided to stop because they were afraid to continue. The next day, at 6 in the morning, they returned to the ravines, but it was impossible to find her. However, at 9 in the morning she traveled to Tlapa to ask for help from the Tlachinollan Mountain Human Rights Center to file the complaint with the public prosecutor’s office.
On Saturday, January 14 and Sunday, January 15, the state police went up to the community of Santa María Tonaya, but they might not search because it was night. The police have boasted of conducting flyers in the main streets of Tlapa. On January 25, the State Attorney General’s Office (FGE) issued the Amber Alert to locate the girl Esmeralda, describing her with personal data. The regional prosecutor’s office has carried out two searches, one on January 31 and another on February 2 without success.
There is no trace of the girl. They were her first steps, deciphering the world, walking on her land and hoping to be able to talk to her mother. Her only limitations are her words, so she cannot express her feelings, her fears, her laughter or the feeling of cold that those waves of absence bring. She might now scream at the wind to bring her home.
The disappearance of the girl Esmeralda occurs in a context of violence in the Montaña region, where 15-year-old Yazmín Hernández Peral also disappeared in the community of Tecoyame de Guadalupe, municipality of Tlalixtaquilla de Maldonado, on January 15 ; Itzel de la Luz Silva González, 20 years old from the community of Alcozauca, disappeared on December 16, 2022; Silvia Abelina Navarrete Soriano, 58 years old, originally from Axoxuca, municipality of Tlapa.
A total of 12 people were reported missing on social networks from December 2022 to January 2023. 4 women are still missing, including the girl Esmeralda, as well as 4 men, while a girl and a boy were found alive. However, Don Margarito and Pedro, who were reported missing on December 31, were found dead on January 23 as a result of an accident.
The indigenous families of the Mountain hope that their disappeared will return. They live in fear because these times have become complex due to the violence generated by organized crime groups.
The authorities are conspicuous by their absence. Municipal presidents have other interests. The government of Evelyn Salgado has shown that it is overwhelmed by the feast of organized crime groups that have had heated confrontations in Teloloapan, Apaxtla, Petatlán, Buenavista de Cuellar, Zihuatanejo, Coyuca de Benítez, Iguala, Cocula, Tepecuacuilco, Huitzuco, Acapulco, Chilpancingo, Zapotitlán Tablas, in addition to the violence in the poorest municipality in Mexico: Cochoapa el Grande, in the Montaña region. Guerrero is mined.
The state is on red alert not only for the murders, but for the disappearances of women and girls. The disappearance of the girl Esmeralda is a reflection that there is a human rights crisis that is far from the promises of building peace, and if the authorities continue to navigate the murky waters of violence, the waves will be catastrophic. Despite the fact that the Violet Alert or the Amber Alert was declared before the disappeared women and girls, the actions are meager. There are no answers. Where are the disappeared indigenous people of the Mountain? Where is the girl Esmeralda?
