Amnesty International on Jan. 13 slammed the Mexican government for what it described as the "complete lack of will by state and federal authorities" to properly investigate the disappearance of thousands of people, including 43 students who vanished in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, two years ago.

The international human rights organization released a report titled "Treated with indolence: The State's Response to Disappearances in Mexico," which notes that the whereabouts of more than 27,000 individuals remain unknown across the country. In a statement, Amnesty decried "systemic incompetence" among officials charged with solving cases of people who have been forcibly disappeared.

Erika Guevara-Rosas, the group's Americas director, pointed to the Guerrero mass kidnapping along with similar incidents in Chihuahua and demanded the Mexican government take action.

'Total disregard for human rights and human dignity'

"The relentless wave of disappearances that is taking over Chihuahua and the utterly reckless way in which the investigation into the enforced disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa students is being handled show the Mexican authorities' total disregard for human rights and human dignity," said Guevara-Rosas.

Many Mexican citizens had resigned themselves to the fact that abductions have become part of everyday life, the activist noted.

"Tragically, disappearances have become such a common occurrence across Mexico that they have almost become part of ordinary life," Guevara-Rosas explained. "In the rare occasions when investigations actually take place, they are little more than a mere formality to pretend something is being done."

A long battle between families, authorities

The families of the 43 students abducted in Guerrero have long been at odds with Mexican authorities including President Enrique Peña Nieto, and in an October top-level meeting did not lead to any solutions, the Spanish newspaper El Mundo recalled.

"I prefer not to evaluate the meeting" with Peña Nieto, government spokesman Eduardo Sánchez told reporters at the time.

Relatives of the forcibly disappeared students, on the other hand, were outspoken in their anger over the lack of a proper investigation at the time.

"The meeting with Peña Nieto was a mere necessity," Mario González, the father of one of the missing students, noted. "Unfortunately, he has never given us anything other than psychological blows."

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