After an eight-year-old dog named Mika escaped at Mexico City airport en route to Houston this week, her distraught owner posted a brief video on Twitter, calling on the airline she was traveling with to find her missing pet.
The tearful plea touched a nerve: Pamela Álvarez’s post was retweeted more than 20,000 times, and the hashtags #Mika and #BuscandoaMika (Looking for Mika) trended on Mexican Twitter.
When the dog was found and reunited with its owner, the story trended again, and the airline turned the episode into a public relations win.
But the incident has also prompted some to ask why – in a country where the disappearance of thousands of people often goes unremarked – there was such outrage over a missing dog.
At least 25,000 Mexicans have disappeared over the past 10 years, many of them caught up in the violence unleashed by the government’s militarized crackdown on drug cartels and organized crime.
State authorities and the media show little interest in most missing persons cases, and relatives of the disappeared are often obliged to search alone for their loved ones.
After the outpouring of concern for the missing dog, Twitter users were quick to highlight the apparent double standard.
“I wish the authorities searched for the more than 30,000 disappeared like they did for #Mika, I wish the media gave that coverage,” read one tweet.
“So much unity to find ‘Mika’; but I don’t see them joining to find the thousands of disappeared,” read another.
Some asked the airline Interjet – which found Mika in the Mexico City airport – to started searching for the 43 teacher trainees who vanished without trace after they were attacked by police in 2014 and handed over to criminals.
Others called on the carrier to track down Javier Duarte, the ex-governor of Veracruz state who went on the run amid allegations of rampant corruption.
Missing persons cases in Mexico often end in limbo: few victims are located, either dead or alive.
Families of the disappeared also suffer additional stigma as authorities claim – without offering proof – that victims of violence were somehow complicit in crime.
“Families and friends begin to withdraw,” said Blanca Martínez, director of the Fray Juan Larios human rights center in the northern city of Saltillo, which provides legal assistance to families of the missing. “[They think that] your loved one was likely involved in something they shouldn’t have been involved in so I’ll keep my distance.”
