TIJUANA (Border Report) — The Todos Somos Erick Carrillo Foundation has been spearheading efforts to find missing people in Tijuana since 2019 when the group’s namesake disappeared at the age of 20 while visiting the border city from San Diego.

His father, Eddy, started the group and has been actively trying to find missing people while providing resources and support for the families of the missing.

“It has not gone down since 2019,” said Eddy Carrillo, who lives in Tijuana. “Since we started looking for my son on July 1, 2019, the numbers keep going up.”

He said the number of missing persons that year reached 2,500. So far this year, the group says, an estimated 1,500 people have gone missing in Tijuana.

“In 2020, it was 2,500 again, then in 2021, we saw 2,200 people missing,” he said.

Carla Cox knows all too well what Eddy Carrillo and many others have gone through as they try to locate their children.

Cox has been looking for her daughter Hilda and daughter-in-law Nora since the couple disappeared on Aug. 24.

“We hold out hope that we can find them, every day we wait for the phone call telling us they’ve been located,” said Cox. “Every time I go out into the street and see people walking by I’ll notice a blonde girl like my daughter and immediately think it’s her.”

Cox says she has gone to the police but says investigators have not been very helpful.

“They haven’t been able to do much or give me any word on a line of investigation. All they say is to be patient and that they are investigating,” she said.

When Border Report reached out, police in Tijuana could not provide any specifics about an investigation involving Cox’s daughters.

It also would not tell us how many people are missing overall in Tijuana, all we were told is that the figure set at 1,500 is “too high.”

“I worry about this city, I have other children and it’s difficult to see how many have disappeared,” Cox said.

Cox stated the hardest part of searching for her daughters is having to visit the city’s medical examiner’s office on a consistent basis.

“As a mother, having to look through the bodies of the dead is very difficult thinking you’re going to find your daughter without life, especially when you see so many young girls who have died,” she said.

Cox often goes out onto the streets and holds up banners with the pictures of her daughters hoping someone has seen them.

She said she would keep looking until she finds them, dead or alive.