The Mexican non-governmental organization Familias Unidas por Nuestros Desaparecidos Jalisco (Fundej) received the King of Spain Human Rights Award on Wednesday from Felipe VI, who praised the “courage” of families searching for missing people in Mexico and expressed support for their “difficult and necessary” work.

“In union and collective justice lies our greatest strength,” the king said in his speech at the event held in University of Alcalá de Henares (Madrid), organizer of the award together with the Ombudsman.

Fundey was born in 2013 by the hand of seven mothers, among them Maria Guadalupe Aguilarattended the event with three other representatives of the organization to find their missing relatives, and today unites almost 600 families determined to find them.

It is estimated that there are several in Mexico 110 thousand missing and in Jalisco there are about 15 thousand, the fifth state with the highest number of missing people.

The head of the Spanish state praised “perseverance and courage” organizations like Fundey, who “remain undaunted in the face of adversity,” and stressed that the disappearance of one person “undermines trust in institutions and challenges the collective conscience.”

“The disappearance of a loved one gives rise to pain, uncertainty, disorder, fear and many other feelings that are difficult to process. The void it leaves becomes a constant echo of unanswered questions,” lamented the monarch, for whom the “scourge” of enforced disappearances has “torn the fabric of entire communities” in Mexicocountry, he added, “so loved by all Spaniards”.

After receiving the award from Felipe VI, Aguilar presented excited speech in which he exclaimed: “Jalisco is a pit, Mexico is a pit!”.

The mother of José Luis Serrano, the father of two children who went missing in January 2011, attacked her country’s authorities for being “blind, deaf and dumb in the face of the crime of enforced disappearance” and for turning disappearances into ” national standard along with tequila and mariachi“

Therefore, on behalf of all her “sisters in pain”, she demanded “full political will and international cooperation” in order to put an end to this scourge and find graves where missing people may be located.

“Don’t leave us alone. It’s time to get justice for the victims and their families and ensure the crime doesn’t happen again. It’s time to find themasked one of the NGO founders.

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Aguilar was grateful for the strength and hope that the award gives them, although he noted that “for the sake of the past, he will change everything” and return his son.

“We will continue our search because love drives us. that as a mother makes us search for our children without stopping, with strength and dignity,” she concluded.

Prize awarded 25 thousand euroswhich Funday will use to create a forensic laboratory that will help identify victims.

Although he was invited, the Mexican Ambassador to Spain did not attend the event. Quirino Ordaz.

(EFE)