After a years-long search, Ceci Flores, a prominent Mexican activist and founder of the “Madres Buscadoras de Sonora” (Searching Mothers of Sonora) collective, announced on March 25, 2026, that she has located remains potentially belonging to her son, Marco Antonio Sauceda Rocha, who disappeared in 2019. The discovery offers a somber development in a case that has turn into a symbol of the widespread issue of missing persons in Mexico.
Flores reported finding the remains along Highway 26 near kilometer 46 in Hermosillo, Sonora, an area where clandestine burial sites have been previously reported. According to the activist, the remains were scattered across a wide area, indicating the body is not complete.
A DNA test will be necessary to confirm the identity of the remains, Flores explained. “He cumplí mi promesa de encontrarte,” Flores wrote on social media, translating to “I have fulfilled my promise to find you.”
In a social media post detailing the moment she located the remains, Flores reflected on the significance of the discovery after nearly seven years of searching. “Hoy localicé a mi niño en la carretera 26, kilómetro 46, en Hermosillo, Sonora, y más que nunca se siente la fatiga. Abrazo tus restos, es lo que me queda, es lo que me dejaron. Vámonos a casa hijo, de donde nunca tuviste que partir,” she wrote, which translates to “Today I located my son on Highway 26, kilometer 46, in Hermosillo, Sonora, and more than ever I feel the fatigue. I embrace your remains, it is what I have left, it is what they left me. Let’s go home son, from where you never should have left.”
Flores has spent years traveling across the country hoping to find her son alive, maintaining unwavering conviction in her search. In a video released following the discovery, she described finding only bone fragments scattered across the terrain, with more remains still to be located.
“Yo no creo que ninguna madre merezca recoger solamente huesos de su hijo, abrazar solamente huesos, recoger huesos dispersos en todo este lugar, un lugar muy inmenso. Creo que por todo lo que yo he hecho y todo lo que he encontrado, incluso ayudar hasta encontrar a los delincuentes que desaparecieron a mi hijo, lo mínimo que merecía era encontrar un cuerpo completo,” Flores said, which translates to “I don’t think any mother deserves to collect only her son’s bones, to embrace only bones, to collect bones scattered throughout this place, a incredibly immense place. I think for everything I have done and everything I have found, even helping to find the criminals who disappeared my son, the least I deserved was to find a complete body.”
Marco Antonio Sauceda disappeared on May 4, 2019, in Bahía de Kino, Sonora, when armed men stormed the area and abducted him along with his brother, Jesús Adrián. According to Flores, the captors later contacted the family to arrange a meeting point, where Jesús Adrián was released, but Marco Antonio was not.
Authorities were notified, and a formal missing person report was filed, but no information regarding Marco Antonio’s whereabouts was ever provided. Following her son’s disappearance, Ceci Flores began searching for him independently and founded the Madres Buscadoras de Sonora collective in 2019. The group has conducted extensive searches in the desert regions and surrounding areas of Hermosillo and Bahía de Kino, seeking any clues that might lead to her son.
