Since one year, Michoacán disclaims from the triple disappearance in Paracho

Families of the three youths abducted a year ago in Michoacán, criticize the lack of results from investigations by the state authorities, saying that it has protected organized crime groups.

JULY 22, 2013 Paris Martinez (@ paris_martinez)

www.animalpolitico.com

As Sunday came to a close in the town of Paracho, Michoacán, the eighth national Cantoya Balloon Festival 2013 wrapping up, family and friends of the three youths- who one year ago were forcibly taken by an armed group after they had given paper balloon workshops for children- gathered at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City, to pray for their return and to deplore the state’s lack of results produced through the investigations and the protection provided to organized crime groups.

“Since last April,” reported Alicia Guadalupe Nava, Luis Enrique Nava’s mother and Diego Antonio Maldonado’s aunt, (two of the disappeared), “the PGR have been leading the investigations because neither Michoacán state authorities nor the town of Paracho did a thing for our children. I myself met with the Michoacán state attorney general three times and he never knew what he was he was talking about. We’ve gone to Michoacán several times in addition to these meetings, and have been ignored.”

“In fact,” says Mrs. Nava, “it was the same state government, Jesus Reyna Garcia’s interim leader, who sent us to PGR, because none of the authorities in Michoacán showed us any interest. I was never able to meet with constitutional governor Fausto Vallejo, because I was constantly ill.”

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A year later, no progress in investigating the disappearance of three youths in Paracho

Angel E. Martinez, July 7, 2013

Morelia, Miochoakan -. The lack of progress in the investigation into the triple disappearance nearly a year ago. Young professionals, Enrique Castaneda Nava, Antonio Diego Maldonado and Ana Belen Sanchez Mayorga, who had been forcibly removed at Santa Fe in Paracho by group of armed men.

July 21, 2012, ending the workshop on science for children in the House of Culture of Paracho, the young people from Mexico City have decided to stay another day in the town to see the Cantoya international balloon festival. According to some witnesses, the evening before the kidnapping some people disputed with Luis Enrique and Diego Antonio and molested Ana Belen. Then they came to the hotel in the morning. Continue reading

Youths’ belongings found – “taken” from hotel in Paracho

By: Agencia Esquema
Morelia, Michoacan. 03/13/2013

The Movimiento Ciudadano youths’ belongings have been located. Several things they had brought with them to the Cantoya Balloon event, which took place last July 21st in Paracho, were located through a joint operation carried out by the federal and Purhépecha Plateau State.

However, the three young people: Luis Enrique Castañeda Nava, 28 years old, Diego Antonio Maldonado, 34, and Ana Belen Sanchez, 30, who were forcibly removed from the Hotel Santa Fe, in the town of Paracho, have not been located. Continue reading

Worldwide clamor: Where are they?

Verónica Espinosa
01.01.2013

For over five months they have spread the news throughout Europe and Canada about the disappearance of Ana Belém Sánchez Mayorga, Luis Enrique Castañeda Nava Maldonado and his cousin Diego Castañeda. The members of the group “No Más Víctimas!” (No More Victims!) have pressured Michoacán authorities and the federal government to respond to the abduction of the three youths by suspected gunmen of the ‘Caballeros Templarios’ in the town of Paracho on July 21, 2012. On their website they pose the question: “Where are they?”

QUERÉTARO, QRO (Proceso). – The group “No Mas Victimas!” formed in several European cities with a very clear purpose: to ask the Mexican government to respond to the many disappearances and persecution of civil social activists, human rights defenders and promoters of social welfare, whom, say the members of the group, “have been criminalized” by the authorities. Continue reading