Summer Collection 2025 – Patreon Bonus: Enforced Disappearances in Mexico with Ana Srovin Coralli

By Margheritapodcast episodes, The Summer Collection
(Mary and Francisco holding a picture of Mary’s disappeared son. The photo is a kind concession of the Impacta Cine group)

For this last episode of our summer collection we want to give everyone access to one of our recent War Criminals Book Club bonus episodes on Patreon, where every month Janet and Steph and often a guest review a book or a movie connected to international justice. Check it out and consider supporting us.

This time, we watched a documentary, Toshkua, by director Ludovic Bonleux, who has worked on several other documentaries on violence in Mexico. The word “Toshkua” means “to disappear” in the Pesh language of Honduras, and the documentary tells the story of Mary, who travels from the country to the United States border in search of her son, a migrant kidnapped in Mexico, and Francisco, a leader of the Pesh ethnic group, who is confronted with the destruction of his land and language.

To discuss the documentary, we have friend of the pod Ana Srovin Coralli, PhD candidate at the International Law Department at the Geneva Graduate Institute, who wrote her PhD on enforced disappearances. Ana came on the pod in 2023 to discuss the first trial for this crime in Switzerland.

We talk about the great strength of these Central American mothers travelling hundreds of kilometres to look for their children, and what hope means to them. Ana also told us how she met one of the protagonists of the doc, Mary, and the latest sad developments in the search for her son Marco Antonio (here for more). She also discusses the complexity of the system in Mexico, the role armed gangs play in these disappearances and what is changing now with the stricter migration policies imposed by Trump in the US.

If you want to know more:

1. Check out the Impacta Cine, if you send them a message, they will give you the password to watch the documentary: https://www.instagram.com/impactacine/

2. The watch recommended by Ana on enforced disappearance in Mexico Sin Señas Particulares (Identifying Features)

3. Another reading suggestion by Ana if you want to dig deeper into the situation in the Tamaulipas state, which is notorious for a high level of organised crime and disappearances: San Fernando. Última parada: Viaje al crimen autorizado en Tamaulipas by Marcela Turati.