While thousands of fans celebrated the start of the 2026 FIFA World Cup at the Mexico City Stadium, groups of searcher mothers and relatives of missing persons took advantage of the international attention generated by the tournament to denounce one of the deepest humanitarian crises facing the country: the disappearance of more than 133,000 people.

With photographs of their loved ones printed on banners, t-shirts and blankets, dozens of members of organizations from different states of the country gathered in the vicinity of the stadium and at the Fan Fest installed in the capital's Zócalo to demand justice and an effective response from the authorities.

“Mexico, champion in disappearance,” was one of the most repeated slogans during the demonstrations, in which participants sought to contrast the festive atmosphere of the World Cup with the reality experienced by thousands of families who continue to search for missing relatives.

The protest took place amid an extensive security operation. During several moments, tensions were recorded between protesters and police elements, including arrests and struggles when some participants tried to prevent arrests made by the authorities.

They seek to take advantage of international attention

The groups indicated that they chose the opening of the World Cup to make visible a problem that, they claim, has not received sufficient attention from Mexican institutions. Among the banners could be read messages such as "The ball is coming home and our missing people when?", "Government omitting, returning to our children" and "The blood of the country cannot be cleaned with paint."

Yoltzi Martínez, who is searching for her sister who has been missing for 16 years in Acapulco, questioned the resources allocated to the organization of the World Cup and the beautification of public spaces.

According to him, the economic, human and material deployment implemented to guarantee the success of the sporting event should also be reflected in the search and investigation work for missing people.

The protesters also remembered the 43 Ayotzinapa students who disappeared in 2014, one of the most emblematic cases of forced disappearance in Mexico. During the mobilization they counted up to the number 43 in memory of the young normalistas.

From the stadium to the Fan Fest

In addition to the protests held near the stadium, members of groups from at least eleven states entered the Zócalo Fan Fest to share their messages with thousands of national and foreign attendees.

Wearing T-shirts of the Mexican national team modified with images of missing relatives, the participants toured the place and addressed messages to the attendees.

Héctor Flores, a member of the Luz de Esperanza Desaparecidos Jalisco collective and father of a young man who disappeared in 2021, assured that the mobilization was not intended to oppose the World Cup, but rather to take advantage of the presence of international media to expose what he described as a human rights crisis.

For her part, Bibiana Mendoza, spokesperson for the collective “Hasta Fácil Guanajuato” (Bajío), pointed out that the searcher families seek to show a reality that they consider absent from the official image projected during the tournament. In addition to the disappearances, he mentioned problems such as the forced displacement of communities, the murders of searchers and the delay in the identification of human remains.

Hours later, a separate group of protesters, some with their faces covered, clashed with police who were blocking access to the stadium. According to reports at the scene, some protesters threw stones and metal fences at the uniformed officers, while the searcher mothers insisted on maintaining a peaceful protest focused on the demand for truth, justice and the location of their relatives.