2024-03-09 17:00:00
“I would like to be like a bird to look for my boy”.
Birds do not have to report to the borders, nor do they have to travel on a bus or by plane: they cross without impediments, they look at the world from above. They look at everything.
If María Elizabeth Martínez could, she would choose to have wings to fly from city to city, from one place to another, over hills, roads, seas and mountains, without fatigue, until she finds her son Marco Antonio Amador. She would do it to see his smile again and feel the joy in him that she has been missing since he disappeared while she was traveling the migratory route.
But Mary can’t fly, so every time she comes to Mexico she reviews the steps her son took by bus or taxi, and she keeps her eyes on the window in case one day, in the distance, she gets to look at him and then she can tell him. to the driver “Stop! Here he is!”
Marco Antonio left Tegucigalpa, Honduras on February 22, 2013, and managed to reach Tamaulipas, a state in northern Mexico. It was three thirty in the afternoon on March 11 when he called his mother from a parish to tell her that she was headed to Reynosa. He was very happy, very happy –Mary remembers–, because he would go to work before resuming his migratory journey. “But the devil’s plans are different”and that was the last time the lady spoke to her son.
Since then, Mary has asked herself many questions that to this day have no answers: “Where is he? Is he healthy? Does he have a bed? Is he eating? Is he alive? Is he dead? Did they bury him? Is he in prison?”. The question, he says, bounces and bounces: “Where is?”.
It is in her faith where she finds the drive to continue searching for herself and for all the Central American mothers who do not know where their missing loved ones are: “I am still in the fight and I am going to continue in the fight. I thank God because he gives me strength, he gives me energy to continue in this fight.”
Mary has traveled through Central America and Mexico, along with other women who have at one time been part of the Caravan of Mothers of Missing Migrants, organized each year by the Mesoamerican Migrant Movement, in the hopes of finding their missing loved ones.
With the portrait of their sons and daughters placed on their chests, they travel by bus and on foot across leagues, kilometers and cities. They knock on doors, gather in squares and public places, march and ask person to person if they have seen them. “We call people with our voice” to gather clues that can lead them back to their families, Mary says.
Mary’s story is told in the documentary Toshkua, by filmmaker Ludovic Bonleux; a word in the Pesh language spoken by indigenous communities in Honduras and which means to disappear. The visual document narrates the struggle of this mother, and in parallel, that of Francisco, dean of the Pesh ethnic group, who faces the destruction of the Mosquitia jungle in Honduras and the disappearance of his language.
The documentary, which portrays the need that Central American families have to know what happened to their loved ones who disappeared on the migratory route, will be shown in different movie theaters in Mexico until March 24.
Heal a little
“I never imagined seeing myself on a big screen”says Mary, releasing a smile fueled by the memory of the encouragement, the hugs and the words of encouragement that are given between the members of the Committee of Relatives of Missing Migrants Love and Faith (COFAMIDEAF), to which she belongs, as well as the accompaniment that He has been offered by Bonleux, the campaign production company Impacta Cine and organizations, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
I had only been to the cinema once. It was a movie about players and in one scene a ball went straight into the camera, “I thought it would hit me in the face”, he relates. She was more used to watching movies on the small screen of a television, so when she saw her face in full view during the presentations of the 2023 edition of the Ambulante Documentary Tour, she looked at herself and was amazed.
But he also cried. She did it when she saw herself in the documentary arriving at a shelter in San Luis Potosí, where she was shown a photo of Marco Antonio, which confirms her visit to that place and reaffirms her hope. to find it. Then, her son’s appearance was different from how she remembered it: visibly thinner and sunburned.
For Mary Toshkua, it is a way that helps spread the needs of families looking for a loved person: to be recognized and know what happened and where they are. “For us mothers it is very important because we make ourselves known, we make it known that we are mothers in search of our children and that we want an answer.”
It is also a way to strengthen people who, like her, have made search efforts. “Now María is going on the trip, now María is going there to look for her son and that encourages us to continue looking for more,” colleagues of hers have said about the documentary.
Through art she has found a way “to heal a little”. Some time ago she wrote a poem to Mark Antony that bears the title “Son, if I were a bird.” She wrote it within the framework of a workshop where they asked her to write what she felt, and it is part of the publication “Our Paths”, which brings together the letters of several women who are looking for their loved ones. “Those are words that came from my heart and I wrote them (…) We always suffer, but this is a little consolation”Explain.
The ICRC regional delegation for Mexico and Central America, which accompanies COFAMIDEAF and other committees of relatives of missing persons, underlines the need and right of relatives to know where their loved ones are, to obtain recognition of the disappearance and to bring carry out acts of memory.
Within the framework of our humanitarian work, we collaborate closely with civil society organizations and provide technical advice to the relevant authorities with the aim of mitigating the serious humanitarian consequences of this harsh reality. In addition, we support family associations, guiding them in the search process implemented by the State and strengthening their capacities.
Our humanitarian action is neutral and impartial and seeks to contribute to mitigating the suffering caused by violence in people and communities. It is in this context that we want to convey to families that they are not alone, that we remember their loved ones and that we will continue to accompany them, at the same time that we work together with the States so that they do everything possible to offer them answers.
The ICRC is not responsible for the content of the documentary nor has it participated in it.
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