El Faro published this photo essayin Spanishin February 2022 and has now translated it as part two of “Disappeared in El Salvador”, a special photography curation on the evolution of violence from the civil war to gang control to the state of exception. View parts one and three.
The last time Ricardo Santos saw his son was the morning of Jan. 1, 2022, after celebrating New Year’s Eve together. In his phone, Ricardo, 53 years old and a logistics worker in a maquila, clings to the last photograph he has of his son, Carlos Santos, 22 years old. In it, Carlos is burning gunpowder on the night of December 31, hours before he disappeared. The morning of his disappearance, he left to go jogging in a park in the Monserrat neighborhood of San Salvador, under the control of the 18th Street Revolucionarios gang. He never returned. His father says that this was not normal in any way, that his son likes sports, but always came back after a couple of hours. He was studying English-language pedagogy, did not drink alcohol, was not a member of any gang, and his grades were excellent. Carlos disappeared on his way to a park that is the border between the territories of the Revolucionarios and the Mara Salvatrucha-13.
Carlos Santos is undoubtedly one of the first missing persons of 2022. On January 1 at 7 p.m., after more than ten hours, Ricardo went to the National Civil Police (PNC) station in Monserrat, where he filed a report. Since then, he has spent 52 days looking tirelessly for his son. He searches at night, because he has to work during the day to support his family. Sometimes Ricardo is accompanied by Carlos’ mother, but this rarely happens because Ricardo prefers not to expose anyone else in his family. When the sun goes down, Ricardo searches gang-controlled neighborhoods: IVU, Dina, Luz, Historic Center. Ricardo's distrust of the police is so great at this point that he prefers to walk the areas near Monserrat on his own every night. He has been a basketball coach for years in the surrounding neighborhoods; among his students are many current gang members and some of their children. Getting to know them through sport has given him access to neighborhoods where strangers hardly enter at night.
In a country where information on missing persons is precarious, limited to police reports, in 2021 the Attorney General’s Office received 1,828 reports of disappearances — 638 of these have not been found alive or dead. Up to February 10 of this year, 2022, the Police say there were 65 reports of disappearances. Last week the Search Bloc for Disappeared Persons was born. Among other things, the mothers organized there say they did it to demand more and better information about official search processes. They often feel like Ricardo, searching for their children in the dark.
Late into the night, Ricardo reviews the photos he has of his children, a 12-year-old boy, a 17-year-old girl, and the last photo he took of Carlos, 22, on the night of Dec. 31, 2021, while he was burning gunpowder. Hours later he disappeared three blocks from his home in the Monserrat neighborhood.
Since the day his son disappeared, Ricardo has been looking for him. He does it every night, driving around the red-light districts of the capital. To the bichos from the Revolucionarios he is a well-known basketball coach: He trained some of them or their children in neighborhoods such as IVU and DINA. This recognition gives Ricardo the privilege of being able to enter some areas to look for his son. This would be unthinkable for many fathers and mothers undergoing the same. On one of those nights, the IVU gang members told him: “We haven't seen him here yet, but, God willing, you’ll find him.”
When he disappeared Carlos was headed to Lito Barrientos Park, a few blocks from his house and a few meters from the Monserrat branch of the PNC, painted blue. In one of the corners there is a camera placed on an electric pole. When Ricardo tried to find out if it belonged to the PNC or the Metropolitan Police, neither entity would take responsibility. The spot is on the border between the 18th Street Revolucionarios gang and the Mara Salvatrucha-13.
Because they have to keep their jobs, Ricardo and Eneida ask the police for updates in their free time. For Ricardo, that is only possible in the evenings. On February 11, they went to the Monserrat PNC office to find out how their case was progressing. The officer on duty told them that he knew nothing. “I'll be honest,” complained Ricardo, “even the bichos from the IVU’s 18 help me more to look for my son than you do.”
Ricardo goes in the evenings to the park where his son usually went to exercise, like that morning when he did not return home. On the night of Feb. 11, 2022 at 10:30 p.m., 42 days after his son disappeared, Ricardo found some scavengers in the park whom he approached to ask if they had seen his son. The answer was the same as every night: nothing.
On Feb. 4, 2022, at a gas station on Los Héroes Boulevard, Ricardo observed a group of young people who had come to drink alcohol. Minutes later, a patrol car from the 911 response system arrived. Ricardo approached the agents to tell them about his case and his search. One of the agents questioned him: “And who gave you permission to do that?” referring to the search for his son. Ricardo replied: “He is my son.”
After each night making the rounds, Ricardo is exhausted: “My head is divided in two: During the day I am thinking about my work and supporting my two children. I have to concentrate, because at night I have no mind except to look for Carlos.”
In Plaza Libertad, police officers took a picture of their search poster. “It's incredible that the police is basing their investigation on ours. They aren't making any moves. We, the family, are the ones investigating,” he says.
At 11:30 at night in the Historic Center, while Ricardo searched for his son, he passed in front of a photograph announcing a missing person. He read the information carefully, frowned and continued his search.
During a conversation with an agent of the Metropolitan Police Corps in the capital’s downtown area, Ricardo handed him some posters of his son. The agent told him: “You have to be prepared for the worst.” Ricardo replied: “I no longer feel pain, the pain I have is in my heart.” He put out his cigarette on his tongue.
Occasionally, Ricardo is accompanied by his wife, Eneida Abarca. When they go out, they paste posters with information about their son. “I don't like it when she walks with me, because I don't want to put her at risk. This country is very dangerous. I walk here because I’m not afraid of anything,” he said one of those nights in the Divino Salvador del Mundo square.
“Help us find him! Carlos Ernesto Santos — 22 years old, was last seen on Jan. 1, 2022 at 9:00 a.m. in Monserrat. He went out for a run but did not return. Wearing a white shirt, blue pants and gray tennis shoes. If you see him or have any information, please call 79927918,” reads the posters that Ricardo sticks to poles at night across San Salvador.
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