PHOENIX — Desperate to find her son, a mother crosses the border every week to join a search group in Sonora, Mexico.
“I promised your children that you would come back, that I would bring you back and God will allow it,” said Guadalupe Tello Gastelum, expressing her heartbreak.
It’s been more than two years since she began crossing the border to Mexico to search for her son.
"It's something that torments you, that torments you horribly because when you have children, you never imagine that one day you could be going through this," she said.
Tello Gastelum said her son, 35-year-old Gilman Agramon, disappeared on Nov. 2, 2020, after he made a trip to the region of Magdalena, Sonora. Days later, nothing more was heard of him, and that's when her search began.
The 65-year-old mother took a photo of her son and joined the Madres Buscadoras de Sonora, a group of women searching for their missing loved ones.
"From the moment I cross the border, it starts to hurt me” she said. “I'm on the road, and I'm alone in my car and I'm talking to him… I'm saying, ‘where are you my love, please give me a little light.’"
With pick and shovel in hand, Tello Gastelum joins this group of women who carry with them the hope of finding the remains of their missing loved ones in some clandestine grave. It’s a search full of challenges, but most of all, of pain.
"It's a horrible desperation,” she said.
Since its founding, the Madres Buscadoras de Sonora have located more than 1,500 clandestine graves. Currently, about 30 women are making that trip from Arizona each week.
According to the group's director, Cecilia Patricia Flores, more and more women are joining the group.
"I think what doesn't cause the Madres Buscadoras to be in this place is the apathy of the authorities, the insensitivity on their part," said Flores.
Cecilia founded the group in 2015 after the disappearance of her own children. Today, more than 2,000 women are a part of the group, demanding an end to the violence and insecurity that has plagued the region for years.
The BBC recently named the group’s leader one of the 100 most influential women in the world.
12News on YouTube
Catch up on the latest news and stories on the 12News YouTube channel. Subscribe today.