Mexican families scour arid plains for graves of disappeared

Silvia Ortiz and Oscar Sanchez, members of 'Grupo Vida', which recently opened a tortilla factory to cover the operating costs of their community-led forensic digs, take part in a search for human remains at a plot in the municipality of San Pedro, Mexico August 19, 2019. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril

TORREON, Mexico (Reuters) - Fifteen years after her daughter's disappearance, 55-year-old Silvia Ortiz spends day after day raking through arid scrubland in northern Mexico hoping to find her remains.

Ortiz belongs to a group of families working to uncover graves of some of the 40,000 people who have gone missing in mounting lawlessness since the government sent in the armed forces to tackle Mexico's drug cartels at the end of 2006.