The cousin of two sisters who went missing in Mexico along with a friend more than two weeks ago described her relatives as “hard-working, honest women” — as she fears time is “not in their favor.”
Maritza Trinidad Perez Rios, 47, Marina Perez Rios, 48, and Dora Alicia Cervantes Saenz, 53, all vanished after crossing the border on Feb. 24 to sell clothes at a flea market in the Mexican city of Montemorelos, US authorities said Friday.
Ludy Arredondo, a cousin of the Perez sisters, said it has been agonizing ever since the group left Peñitas, the small Texas border city where they lived.
“Today is day 16 and we still don’t know about my cousins Maritza Perez, Marina Perez and Dora Cervantes,” Arredondo said Sunday, according to the Mirror.
The anguished relative said there have been “exhausting, desperate days” as the three women remain missing after vanishing.
She described her cousins as “hard-working, honest women.”
“They only went to work. So far the FBI has joined their search after so many days of their disappearance, time is ticking and not in their favor,” Arredondo added.
In a statement, the FBI said it was aware of the three women going missing and that the agency “relentlessly pursues all options when it comes to protecting the American people, and this doesn’t change when they are endangered across the border.”
But even as authorities investigate, Arredondo says not enough is being done to help the missing trio.
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“So far we do not have a single piece of news, the authorities do not say anything, they do not have clues,” Arredondo wrote, according to the Mirror.
“Please do not leave us alone and keep sharing.”
Peñitas Police Chief Roel Bermea said their families have been in touch with Mexican authorities, who are investigating their disappearance.
The husband of one of the women spoke to her by phone while she was traveling in Mexico, but grew concerned when he stopped being able to reach her, Bermea said.
“Since he couldn’t make contact over that weekend, he came in that Monday and reported it to us,” Bermea said.
Bermea said the women were traveling in a green mid-1990s Chevy Silverado to a flea market in Montemorelos, in Nuevo Leon state on Friday, Feb. 24. They have not been heard from since.
Their disappearance came just a week before the abduction of four Americans in Mexico, who had traveled to the country for plastic surgery.
The group of four friends became caught in a drug cartel shootout in the city of Matamoros — with frightening video showing them getting hauled off in a pickup truck.
Two of the four survived and were found Tuesday in a wooden shack near the Gulf coast. The other two were found dead.