Parents of missing migrants begin Mexico caravan crossing

A caravan made up of 50 parents of disappeared Central American migrants departed on Friday from Mexico's southern border for a cross-country journey in search of their missing relatives.

This is the fifteenth time the Mesoamerican Migration Movement (MMM), a non-government organization, has set up a caravan to travel across Mexico in search of migrants who entered the country and went missing.

Composed of 45 women and five men, the caravan entered Mexico's southern Chiapas state through Guatemala and will travel some 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) to cities that undocumented Central Americans are known to pass through on their way to the United States.

"The missing migrants in Mexico are many. There are estimates of between 70,000 and 120,000 missing. Many are in mass graves, others in clandestine graves, others in morgues," MMM leader Martha Sanchez told AFP.

"Others are hiding somewhere in Mexico, living more or less normal lives, working, but they have not been able to communicate with their families."