UN cites ‘almost total’ impunity in Mexico disappearances

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The president of the U.N. Committee on Enforced Disappearances says there is an “almost total, structural” lack of punishment in Mexico for the crime of abducting and disappearing people.  Carmen Rosa Villa Quintana wound up almost two weeks of fact-finding and interviews with victims’ families in Mexico on Friday. Villa Quintana said there is “a generalized phenomenon of disappearances” in Mexico, where 95,000 people remain missing. In Mexico, new clandestine grave sites turn up almost every week, and victims’ relatives are often left to search on their own for their loved ones’ remains. Mexico has about 52,000 cases where bodies have been found, but not formally identified.