This photo essay, publishedin Spanish in February 2025, is part three 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 two and four.
For the last three years, Eneida Abarca has traveled hundreds of kilometers of road. She has combed ravines and, when allowed, entered government offices. She has plastered the streets of San Salvador with photographs of her son’s face. She has tirelessly asked strangers. She has shouted at traffic lights, at marches and protests. She has organized search campaigns and embraced other people who, like her, are looking for a missing relative.
I met Eneida one night at the end of January 2022. Almost a month had passed since the disappearance of her son, Carlos Santos Abarca, 22, who was last seen on New Year’s Day 2022, in Lito Barriento Park behind the Monserrat police station. She was accompanying the father of her son, Ricardo Santos, who had taken to searching the darkness of San Salvador. At that stage, father and mother shared in the search effort. But some time later, for health and economic reasons, Ricardo had to stick to his work, in order to pay for the search for their son.
Eneida, as a sacred vow, made a renunciation of herself. The search became her life’s goal. Little by little she devoted less time to her work and set out with her sister, Virna, to find Carlos.
After three years, Eneida and her family have exhausted all legal avenues in their search for Carlos. Reports of his disappearance to the police and an open line of investigation at the Attorney General’s Office have yielded no fruit.
Five hundred days after his disappearance, Eneida managed to get a DNA sample to be compared with the bodies at the coroner’s office, Medicina Legal. She also managed to get Interpol to issue a yellow missing-persons alert. She has delivered letters to the office of the presidential commissioner for human rights, Andrés Guzmán, to the Legislative Assembly, and to the office of Minister of Security Gustavo Villatoro. No response.
Everywhere she goes, Eneida wears a shirt with her son’s photograph on it. She holds out hope that someone will tell her they saw him. On May 16, 2023, during an interview on a morning program, Minister Villatoro said he had reports of places where Carlos had been seen earlier that year. He also said not all disappearances are linked to criminality, but to family problems: “The case is being worked on, but it is not related to criminal activity and, like the other cases, we are investing resources and time in it. We are going to continue looking for him in order to hand him over to the family.” Eneida places no trust in those words.
After those statements, Eneida tried for months to get a response from Villatoro, until on Jan. 1, 2025, the three-year anniversary of Carlos’ disappearance, she learned that she had been blocked from the minister’s X account. “It's not fair that they treat me like opposition. I just want to find my son,” Eneida said. Shortly afterward, the official X account of the National Civil Police also blocked the account of Carlos Ernesto Santos Abarca, which is used by Eneida to campaign for the search. President Nayib Bukele and Casa Presidencial joined the blockade.
Abandoned by the state, three years after her son vanished, Eneida is still searching.
Eneida is 45 years old and was born and raised in San Salvador. She sold medical clothing until she had to give it up to dedicate her time to the search for Carlos. She has always lived in the capital, in a densely populated neighborhood controlled by gangs until the installment of the state of exception in March 2022. For Eneida it is one of life’s ironies that now, even with the gangs dismantled, she avoids mentioning her place of residence out of fear. “My son disappeared shortly before the regime, but this government was already selling itself as the safest in history. Now there is a different kind of insecurity, because this government tries to silence anything that makes it feel uncomfortable,“ she explained.
“I am just a searching mother demanding truth and justice for my beloved son Carlos,” Eneida shouted at the traffic lights on Juan Pablo II Boulevard and 17th Avenue, near the Ministry of Security and Justice, on Sep. 26, 2024. Days earlier, Eneida had arrived in the area to put up posters bearing the face of her son Carlos. Soon, someone covered the posters with gray paint.
Eneida Abarca has already made two requests to the Ministry of Justice and Security. The last request was made on Sep. 26, 2024, in a letter demanding proof of life for her son, which Minister of Security Gustavo Villatoro referenced in a television interview in 2023. She has yet to receive a response.
On May 19, 2024, after months of organizing, Eneida called together the first search brigade for her son Carlos Abarca. The group of people, made up of human rights activists, first responders, and others, mobilized between the Monserrat and Dina neighborhoods of San Salvador. Led by Eneida, they moved between passageways, searched vacant lots, and asked local residents without receiving any positive news. Some people, on condition of anonymity, suggested that she ask the Attorney General’s Office for a search warrant to be able to enter private properties that were under the control of members of the 18th Street Revolucionarios gang, which for years controlled the Dina neighborhood.
“We ask you, Lord, for the lives of Carlos Abarca and Rodrigo Montalván, young people who disappeared in this country. Bring comfort to their families and may they somehow return home safely.” That was the prayer of the priest who officiated the mass of consolation at the request of the mothers Eneida Abarca and Silvia Montalván. Both mothers give each other emotional support in the face of the disappearance of their children. They met in 2022, when the Search Bloc for Missing Persons was formed. They have kept in touch, despite the fact that the bloc gradually scaled down its activities. “Eneida has been fundamental in my life in continuing to search for my son who disappeared in 2015. Thanks to her, I activated the search for Rodrigo and that helps me cope with the deep pain and agony of not knowing where he is,” said Silvia.
“Every time I'm on the street I see people and I try to look for Carlos’ face,” says Eneida. She has gone out every day with that slogan since her son disappeared. After three years, she has never given up. The search led her to ask about her son in dangerous places, such as on Feb. 25, 2022, when she took a tour of 25th Avenue North, which ended in the Tutunichapa community. There she asked every person she met, but no one had seen Carlos.
The image of Carlos Abarca has become popular in El Salvador. It is common to see him at different protests, in different struggles. On Oct. 19, 2024, during the protest organized by doctors’ and teachers’ unions, a banner with Carlos’ face on it was carried through the streets of San Salvador. Eneida participates in marches such as those on March 8, International Women’s Day, and November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. It is also common to see Eneida at protests for victims of the state of exception.
Members of Comandos de Salvamento searched Arenal Monserrat for something that would identify Carlos Abarca: the brown shoes, white shirt or blue pants he was wearing when he disappeared. The rescuers moved rocks, removed trash and dug through the mud. They found no clues as to Carlos’ whereabouts.
The X accounts of Security Minister Gustavo Villatoro, the National Civil Police, Casa Presidencial, and President Nayib Bukele have each blocked the account of Carlos Ernesto Santos Abarca, used by Eneida to campaign to find her son. The blocks came after Eneida wrote to them demanding information about his case: “I guess it's because they don't want something like this to come out in a ‘cool’ country. They want to make it invisible, but how is it my fault?” said Eneida. Public officials in El Salvador often block people they find uncomfortable on social media, such as journalists and human rights activists.
At the end of January 2022, Eneida Abarca and her husband Ricardo Santos used to go out together to search for Carlos. According to Eneida, neither the police nor prosecutors applied the Urgent Action Protocol for missing persons. On Jan. 1, 2022, when Eneida and Ricardo went to the Monserrat police station, the officer on duty told them to go home because Carlos had probably left with his girlfriend.
On Jan. 17, 2025, Eneida and her sister Virna carried out the first poster campaign with Carlos Santos Abarca’s face in the Historic Center of San Salvador. Carrying three containers of paste, they covered the posts across several blocks of the city center. That was the second activity of the year. Eneida has not received a warning call since February 2022, when a witness testified to the Attorney General’s Office that they had seen someone very similar to Carlos Abarca in the vicinity of Cuscatlán Park. Eneida asked the prosecutor's office to review the cameras. She never received a response.
After three years, Eneida suffers from sleep disorders. Carlos is the first thing she thinks about when she wakes up and the last on her mind before trying to sleep. “If I didn’t insist on the search, nobody would talk about Carlos. He couldn't have been swallowed up by the earth! I hope one day someone will manage to raise awareness and tell me that they found my son.”
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