SAN DIEGO (Border Report) -- A private search group based in Tijuana says there are more than 20,000 missing people in Baja California and that the numbers released by the state prosecutor's office undercount the real figure.
Angélica RamÃrez, director of "A Nation Searching," says the state places the number of missing people in Baja at 17,000, but only through the end of 2022.
"Our numbers our based on studies done by human rights groups, civic organizations, specialists who deal with missing people, and they arrived at the 20,000 mark, more than that if you want to be specific," RamÃrez said. "There are other groups of people the state doesn't consider such as migrants, tourists and others who arrive in the region and disappear."
RamÃrez said the number of missing persons in Baja California is likely even higher than 20,000.
"There are so many who arrived at the border looking for a new life and they vanish," she said. "We have missing people who have never been reported as such by their families because they don't know, they believe their loved ones made it to the United States, maybe found a partner, a new life and have not been in touch because they lost a phone number."
RamÃrez stated she and her volunteers often walk around areas of the city talking to the homeless and others to see if they've been in touch with their families and to check if they have been reported missing.
"We don't believe every missing person is a victim of something malicious or a crime, maybe they fell to addiction or have no way of communicating, that's why we have to go looking."
RamÃrez said it's difficult to arrive at a true figure because of the "dynamics along the border."
"Tijuana is a very fluent city with the culture changing constantly, we have people arriving every day, there are also some that just leave without notifying anyone, we many never have an exact number of the missing."
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