The report from the UN committee on enforced disappearances referred the issue for discussion in the UN general assembly, alleging that the crisis of missing people constitutes a “crime against humanity.”
Disappearances in Mexico are committed “with multiple levels of participation, acquiescence, and omission on the part of public servants,” the report said.
While highlighting government failures, the report stressed there was no evidence of a “federal-level” official policy behind the disappearances.
The UN committee argued its decision to send the report to the general assembly was a “preventive” measure to raise awareness, “rather than to establish individual criminal responsibility.”
In response, Mexico’s government said it “rejects the report… for being tendentious.”
The government statement said the UN report had failed to recognise multiple new measures to locate missing people.
It also attacked the authors of the report: “There is evidence that at least one of them worked for organisations that have presented complaints against the Mexican state.”
“The Mexican government doesn’t tolerate, permit, nor order enforced disappearances,” it continued.
Last week, the Mexican government reported that it has registered 130,178 disappeared people since 2006.
A military offensive against drug gangs over the last two decades has seen an accompanying surge in murders and displacement of civilians.
According to the UN committee’s report, the Mexican government has failed to develop an efficient investigative apparatus for locating the missing.
The report cited the 2025 discovery of Rancho Izaguirre, a camp outside Guadalajara tied to the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, or CJNG, where hundreds disappeared in homemade crematoriums.
Local media reports suggested local authorities knew of the camp as early as 2019, and two police were arrested in relation to its operation.
“The CJNG probably acted with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of at least some state authorities,” the report read.
Facing pressure from US president Donald Trump to crack down on organised crime gangs, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum and her security minister have claimed a drop in homicides and enforced disappearances as evidence that their security policies are working.