The year was 1997, the place was a slum area called Los Guidos, in San José, Costa Rica. Around 100,000 families live in very poor and sometimes inhuman conditions. Families are large, most are single mothers with 5 to 7 children of different fathers. Around 85 percent of the families are illegal Nicaraguan immigrants. It was a normal Tuesday afternoon when 3 years old Pedro was outside playing. His mother inside the small “house” was doing her households. After a few hours she called her children in and Pedro is no longer outside. His brothers and sisters started looking for him with no results. Soon neighbors join the search. Night falls and the anguished mother files a report with the local police.
It takes hours before the police start the search but finally they do, and the local news start showing Pedro’s pictures in case someone has seen him.
Days go by and no results. Pedro has vanished. Nobody saw anything or heard anything. The mother is interviewed by the local news, and all she does is cry and ask for some information that will allow her to see her son again. Weeks go by and neighbors stop helping and looking. The case is open but it goes into one of the thousands of files of the OIJ (equivalent to the FBI in Costa Rica). Pedro’s mother keeps visiting the OIJ office every month to see if there is any news. The answer is always the same: “No news–we contact you if there is any changes.” After some months people forget and lose interest in the case. Everyone moves on, except Pedro’s family. For them life is never the same, Pedro is missing and they have no idea what happened to him. A mother always wonders, “Is he cold? Is he alive? Is he well? Is he hungry?” and a million more questions go through her mind.
It has been almost 18 years since this unfortunate incident happened. What is worse is that this incident happens every day in all countries of the world. Millions of children go onto a list of missing people and when there are no results they remain there, just in a list. Now more than ever we have the capacity to join forces and have an international database with updated pictures of how these millions of children would look like. Systems that make it easy for others to report any information anonymously. But we are not well organized, and the truth is that these children remain there… on the list.
Last week the Nicaraguan government sent an alert saying that they might have found Pedro. Seventeen years later. His mother traveled to the neighbor-country for a DNA test, and unfortunately the test was negative, the young man was not Pedro.
It broke my heart to hear the mother talking on the local news still asking for any information like the first day her son disappeared. It made me think of all the families that have gone through this tragedy and how they could support each other not only at a local level. My question remains if this happened in your family when would you give up? My answer is NEVER.
Letter by Kadyja Brealey, Costa Rica