Shelbie Lynn Dwyer, a 17-year-old American, disappeared on March 31 in the municipality of Salvador Alvarado, Sinaloa. The State Prosecutor’s Office issued a search alert for the minor on Tuesday, establishing that the day her trail was lost, the young woman “could have been in the Curiosita cyber and stationery store, in Guamuchil, without any more information about his possible whereabouts. The Public Ministry considers that Lynn Dwyer “is at risk, since she may be the victim of the commission of a crime.”
Lynn Dwyer has a slim build, standing at 1.57 meters tall and her body is decorated with tattoos such as the word “blessed” on her right arm, the word “bite me” on her ass, a small heart on her left middle finger, or “doves.” and prayer hands on the upper left arm”, according to the search file of the Prosecutor’s Office.
Lynn Dwyer’s is not an exceptional disappearance. In recent months, the press throughout Mexico has reported similar cases of other American women, a problem that adds to the serious crisis of femicides and disappearances of Mexican women that already existed in the country. From the last case less than a week ago: Bionce Amaya Cortez, a 20-year-old Mexican woman residing in Texas, was found dead over the weekend in Nuevo Leon, her home state, where she had gone to spend her vacation from Easter week. The State Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the event as a femicide.
Added to the list is the case of Monica de Leon Barba, kidnapped in November in Jalisco. The FBI is offering a $40,000 reward for any information leading to her discovery. Also Maria del Carmen Lopez, who disappeared in Colima this February, allegedly also kidnapped, according to the FBI, which offers a $20,000 reward for her appearance. The statistics grow month by month while the Government ensures that it works to solve the crisis.
The disappearance of Lynn Dwyer occurs in a context of diplomatic tensions between Mexico and the United States due to the insecurity crisis that is taking place south of the Rio Grande, triggered by the highly publicized disappearance of four US citizens last February in Tamaulipas. Two were found alive, two dead. The most radical wing of the US Republican Party used the event as gasoline to feed an old aspiration of the most conservative sectors: declare the drug cartels terrorist groups in order to carry out military operations on Mexican soil.
The excuse, in addition to crime, was the fentanyl epidemic that the American streets are suffering from and has caused records of overdose deaths in the last year. Republican lawmakers accuse Mexico of producing the opioid that is then consumed across the border. The Mexican president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, turned against the Republican proposal. “Mexico is much safer than the United States,” said the president in a political outrage in which he also stated that he is not going to let the neighboring country “trampling” national sovereignty. “We have to maintain our relationship, cooperation with the United States is very important, but without subordination,” he later qualified.
The US Department of State maintains the alert on its citizens not to travel to six Mexican States: Colima, Guerrero, Michoacan, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas and Zacatecas, due to “crime” and “kidnappings”. The agency also recommends “reconsidering” if the destination of the trip is Baja California, Chihuahua, Durango, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Morelos or Sonora. Only with Campeche and Yucatan, it indicates that “the normal precautions for a trip” must be exercised. For the rest of the territories, it urges to “exercise caution”.
