The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) offers the first public apology to the family of young Mariela Vanessa Díaz Valverde, who is a student at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters and has been reported missing since April 27, 2018.
The event took place more than a year after it was postponed by the university and just a few weeks after Enrique Graue left the rectorship of UNAM.
“Today we are here to publicly apologize for the efforts and omissions we have made in response to the disappearance of Mariel Vanessa Díaz Valverde, which occurred more than 5 years ago,” said Enrique Graue, UNAM rector.
The university official acknowledged that UNAM failed to provide information to the family, as well as its dismissals calling for a quick and effective search for the student from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters.
“I apologize on behalf of UNAM to you and the entire community for everything we could have done and did not do or did not do enough, the lack of information delivery to the family, the university staff, and the late need for their ” Finding a location contributes to the difficulties the family faces before the authorities responsible for the investigation can find them. ”
Before the family and friends of the young woman, as well as the representatives of the search groups, the university authorities recognized that Mariel Vannesa’s family was once again victimized by not giving them the necessary support for the search process.
Representing the family, Gabriela asked the authorities to continue the search for her sister Mariela Vanessa as well as to prevent the acts committed by UNAM from being repeated in cases of the disappearance of university students.
The disappearance of Mariela Vanessa
On April 27, 2018, the young woman left her house in the neighborhood of Fuego Nuevo, in the office of the mayor of Iztapalapa. Since that day, his whereabouts have been unknown.
After that, his relatives started the search process, accompanied by groups and without support from the police and university authorities.
Together with the collectives We need them, Aeequs: Promoting and defending human rights, and Until we found them, they managed to change the situation of the university student from a missing person to a lost one, as well as for the investigation to be conducted without a gender perspective.
Four years later, in 2022, UNAM recognized that the young woman’s family had been victimized again and reported that it would issue an apology, scheduled for May 26, 2022, even a day before it was to postpone “the purpose of the activity carried out in the conditions appropriate to it.”
