María Zapata Escamilla woke to the sound of shattering glass. Armed men in military fatigues had burst into her home: they dragged her disabled husband outside, along with her 14-year-old son, still in his pyjamas. Then they drove away into the night.
Two weeks later, her husband’s brutalized body turned up, along with nine others. But after more than a year, her son remains missing.
“I was left navigating alone,” she said through tears. “If they told me, ‘Give up your life in exchange for your son,’ I would give it.”
