Overview
- Large crowds visited Peru’s cemeteries on Sunday, with Lima’s Nueva Esperanza reporting more than 500,000 people, Presbítero Maestro estimating about 30,000, Ica’s Saraja topping 40,000, and Huancayo planning for roughly 15,000.
- Local authorities managed the surge with police and municipal patrols, extended hours, crowd-control posts, alcohol bans, dengue-related limits on fresh flowers, and even free shuttle service at Nueva Esperanza.
- Families honored mothers with flowers, prayers, food and music, and cemeteries hired escaleristas—workers with ladders—to place arrangements in high wall niches.
- In Mexico, mothers’ search collectives marked May 10 with marches and memorials to press for answers, citing an official registry of more than 133,000 people missing and over 4,500 clandestine graves found in recent years.
- Search groups and advocates called for legal protection and stronger forensic support as reports described thousands of unidentified bodies nationwide and chronic risks faced by mothers who lead searches.