Dozens of protesters swarmed Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's vehicle on Monday, demanding that the government take action in searching for thousands who have disappeared in the country's war against drugs.

According to a report by Reuters, the protesters bore banners with images of their relatives who went missing. Some demanded the leader to step out of his vehicle and talk to them like he had with El Chapo's mother in late-March.

Read more: El Chapo Was Illegally Extradited to the US, According to his Mother

The Mexican government believes there are over 61,000 missing people in the country, most of whom are victims of violent drug gangs. While some are recovered, many are never found.

On June 9, four armed men stormed a vehicle in Chapala, Jalisco and forced a young Mexican couple-Griselda Gutierrez Rodriguez, 28, and Angel Adan Martinez, 26-to abandon their car. Both victims were reported missing on June 10 after Rodriguez's sister received a tip about an abandoned truck sitting on the side of the road. Their disappearance was the eighth in the past week, and the 31st reported this year, Politicopathy said.

In early June, authorities found the body of a missing Mexican congresswoman who had been missing for a month. In a report by The Guardian, the 38-year-old lawmaker Anel Bueno was abducted by armed men in Ixtlahuacan on April 29 while raising awareness about the COVID-19 pandemic. The town is known as one of the country's most murderous regions due to the presence of the drug trade.

Ixtalahuacan is a half-hour drive from Tecoman, a seaside town known as the country's most dangerous municipality. In 2017, authorities reported 172.5 deaths per 100,000 town residents.

Read more: Mass Murder: 25 Unidentified People Found Dead in Mexico's Jalisco State

As Mexico's drug war escalated, mass graves became a common occurrence. Last year, officials found over 100 clandestine cemeteries where the bodies of the people considered to be enemies of drug cartels were recovered.

In August 2019, officials released the first official tally where they revealed finding 3,025 secret graves across the country. The gravesites held more than 4,874 bodies, most of whom have yet to be identified.

More than 520 of the 3,025 graves were discovered since Lopez Obrador won the presidential election with promises of creating reliable databases and developing a task force to search for the missing persons.

In today's Mexico, most disappearances are associated with drug cartels. The disappearances became more common after former Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched a military offensive against organized crime just days after he took office in December 2006.

Calderon deployed 50,000 masked troops across the nation. His initiative led to the capture of cartel bosses, but the movement only forced the flow of drugs northward. During his administration, an estimated 100,000 people became victims of violent acts. Thousands went missing. Journalists, judges, and politicians became targets of assassinations.

More than 200,000 people have been killed since then. And with the data of missing people becoming notoriously sketchy, desperate relatives were forced to spearhead search efforts, scouring mountains for signs of hidden graves.

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