Searching women defenders Patricia Acosta Rangel and Katia Citlali Jáuregui Acosta, mother and daughter members of the collective “Salamanca Unidos Buscando Desaparecidos”, were killed on Saturday, 9 May in Salamanca, in the state of Guanajuato. They were traveling together by motorcycle on a public road when they were intercepted by armed men who shot at them with firearms.
Patricia launched the search for her son, Miguel Ángel Jáuregui, disappeared on 8 February 2024; a search her daughter Katia subsequently joined. Like thousands of women in Mexico, both women transformed pain and absence into a collective struggle for truth and justice, sustaining search efforts and accompanying other families. In March 2025, they were able to find Miguel Ángel in a hidden grave; however, they continued accompanying other searchers out of solidarity, care and community commitment.
It is important to recall the killing last March of Cecilia García Ramblas, a searching woman defender who was also member of the collective “Salamanca Unidos Buscando Desaparecidos”. These events take place in a worrying context of escalating attacks against searching mothers and defenders who, faced with the country’s crisis of disappearances and the forensic crisis, continue to lead processes of search, memory and demand for justice. With the killing of Patricia and Katia, at least 22 women defenders have been killed in Mexico since 2019, six of them in Guanajuato – one of the areas where searching families face the most risks and violence.
It is particularly painful that this attack took place on Mother’s Day, a date that for thousands of women in Mexico is marked by the absence of their loved ones, a constant state of danger and exhaustion, and a persistent search that never ends.
The National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders in Mexico and IM-Defensoras embrace the pain of Patricia and Katia’s family and of their compañeras in the collective “Salamanca Unidos Buscando Desaparecidos”.
We urge the authorities to investigate the events promptly and diligently, with a human rights and gender perspective, and to treat their work as searchers as a relevant line of inquiry in the investigation. We also demand the immediate and effective implementation of holistic protection, security and care measures for the family of the women defenders who were killed, and especially for members of the collective “Salamanca Unidos Buscando Desaparecidos”.
Finally, we call on the international community to stand in solidarity with the collectives of searching women defenders in Mexico and to remain vigilant regarding the alarming context of risk and lethal violence in which they carry out their dignified and tireless work in pursuit of truth, justice and reparation.