Domingo Atanacio remains missing in Guerrero

Reporting and context

Domingo Atanacio, a 50-year-old farmer from El Balcón in Guerrero’s mountains, remains missing after armed men abducted him and other residents on September 24, according to El País México. The newspaper’s reporting from the community describes a family still waiting for news and survivors who attribute their kidnapping to La Nueva Familia Michoacana.

Atanacio and three nephews were riding two quad bikes toward La Lajita, where he tended crops and cattle, when gunmen intercepted them. His wife, Herminia Ríos, has temporarily moved to Tecpan, closer to the authorities, and supports herself cleaning houses while seeking information about him.

El País México reported that 13 residents were kidnapped. Five were released first, followed by a 13-year-old boy. Six of the remaining seven were freed in mid-October after residents mobilized a network of 18 neighboring communal landholding communities and held a large demonstration in Tecpan. Atanacio was the only one still missing.

Survivors Isidro Brito and Fidel Quirino described beatings, prolonged restraint, scarce food and repeated transfers during captivity. They said Atanacio became disoriented in the heat and was beaten by guards before being taken away. Captors subsequently gave conflicting accounts of whether he was alive. His whereabouts remain unknown.

The National Search Commission and Guerrero prosecutors renewed search operations earlier in the week, the newspaper reported. Teams went to La Sidra on Tuesday and planned to move to Puerto Grande on Wednesday, both in the lower mountains near Tierra Caliente. The report offered no explanation for the selection of those locations.

The abductions have shaken a community of about 700 people whose livelihood includes managing 24,000 hectares of forest, a sawmill and a furniture factory. One survivor told the newspaper that captors questioned them about timber volumes and earnings. Residents suspect the group wants access to their forestry economy, alongside routes connecting Tierra Caliente with the Costa Grande.

Survivors also described seeing other captives, including young women who said they had been held for months. Brito estimated that roughly 136 people were being held at one mango orchard after overhearing a guard ask cooks to prepare tortillas for that number. This was his estimate from captivity, rather than an official count. He said captors forced the men to record a video claiming membership in rival group Los Granados.

Brito further alleged that guards received radio warnings about authorities’ helicopter flights and that a National Guard helicopter passed close to a house where they were being held without intervening. Those accounts form part of the survivors’ testimony to the newspaper. Back in El Balcón, some residents have weapons at home and say they fear further incursions. Ríos continues to wait for information about her husband.

Original publication: El País México.