When two Australian brothers drove down to Mexico鈥檚 northwest coast from San Diego last week with their American friend, they were looking to catch the crisp waves that make Baja California a popular destination among travelers from across the world.
But soon after arriving to the Mexican city of Ensenada, Callum Robinson鈥檚 Instagram posts of his surf adventure ceased. The group stopped answering calls and texts.
He and his brother Jake never showed up at an Airbnb they had booked, their mother said in a social media post, pleading for help from anyone who had seen her two sons.
On Sunday, Mexican authorities announced that the bodies of the three tourists, found at the bottom of a well with gunshot wounds to their heads, had been identified by their families.
The men had been killed in a carjacking gone wrong, the authorities said, and suspects had been detained within days of the men鈥檚 disappearance. More people are being investigated.
It was a tragic yet somewhat fast resolution to a case that had drawn international attention.
For many local Mexicans, however, the quick response from the authorities to locate the Robinson siblings and Jack Carter Rhoad, the American, and make arrests seemed to be an exception in a country where tens of thousands of missing-person cases have sat for years without ever being solved.
The government said in March that about 100,000 people are missing in Mexico, though the United Nations says that could be an undercount.
鈥淚t is very difficult, except for high-profile cases like the one that just happened, for the authorities to immediately trigger the search,鈥� said Adriana Ja茅n, a sociologist based in Ensenada who provides legal, emotional and logistical support to people searching for their missing loved ones.
Federal and state officials in Mexico tend to claim that violence levels have dropped even as official data contradicts them. Local authorities have themselves been involved in disappearances 鈥� in Baja California, municipal police officers from Ensenada were recently accused in the disappearance of one man. And then there鈥檚 also a lack of resources to investigate.
So it鈥檚 noticeable when a case appears to receive special attention.
鈥淭he message those of us who work on these issues get is that there are lives that matter,鈥� Ja茅n added, 鈥渁nd there are others that don鈥檛.鈥�
There are more than 17,300 active disappearance investigations in Baja California state, according to government data provided to Elementa DDHH, a human rights group that has studied the disappearances in the state.
In many instances, it鈥檚 unclear whether the missing person was found; if they were the victim of a crime; and, if so, whether anyone was arrested. Some cases even lack even basic information for beginning a search, a government recount of the disappeared found last year.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 know exactly how many people are missing and how many have been located,鈥� said Renata Demichelis, the Mexico director of Elementa DDHH. 鈥淭he authorities don鈥檛 tell us.鈥�
The available data, however, offer a hint of the problem鈥檚 magnitude.
In 2017, state prosecutors opened about 760 disappearance investigations in Baja California. In five years, the number jumped more than threefold, according to Elementa DDHH.
鈥淭his is an ongoing phenomenon, and it鈥檚 increasing exponentially,鈥� said Demichelis, adding that several factors are contributing to the worsening disappearance crisis in Baja California, such as drug trafficking, internal displacement, migration and gender violence.
The state鈥檚 attorney general, Mar铆a Elena Andrade Ram铆rez, said in an interview that prosecutors have so far ruled out the possibility that the killing of the Robinson brothers and Rhoad was linked to organized crime groups.
Those responsible had tried to seize the tourists鈥� pickup truck, she said. When they resisted, a man took out a gun and killed them.
鈥淭his aggression seems to have occurred in an unforeseen, circumstantial manner,鈥� Andrade Ram铆rez said. 鈥淭hey took advantage when they saw the vehicle out in the open, in that remote location, where they knew that there were no witnesses.鈥�
In a news conference this past weekend, a reporter asked Andrade Ram铆rez if one needs to be a foreigner in Baja California to have state authorities act as swiftly as they did in the case of the missing tourists.
鈥淓very investigation has its own process,鈥� the attorney general answered. 鈥淎nd there are times when we have to take care of every detail, which takes a certain amount of time, to achieve a good result.鈥�
On Sunday, after the victims鈥� families identified the bodies in the morgue, Adriana Moreno, a local resident, said she felt conflicting emotions.
鈥淚鈥檓 so glad they found them so quickly. That鈥檚 my joy, my satisfaction,鈥� said Moreno, 60. She has been looking for her son, V铆ctor Adri谩n Rodr铆guez Moreno, since 2009, when he and two of his co-workers 鈥� employees of an import business 鈥� were abducted in the northern state of Coahuila.
鈥淏ut 15 years after the disappearance of my boy, there鈥檚 nothing,鈥� Moreno said. 鈥淭hey make me feel like missing people come in levels of importance.鈥�
This article originally appeared in. 漏 2024 The New York Times
