More than 26k missing in Mexico drug war—official

US Border Patrol agent and drug-sniffing German Shepherd, Jack-D, prepare to search vehicles for drugs at a checkpoint near the US-Mexico border on Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, north of Nogales, Arizona. Mexico said Tuesday that more than 26,000 people have been reported kidnapped or missing over a six-year period ending in November 2012, amid a bloody drug war. JOHN MOORE/GETTY IMAGES/AFP

MEXICO CITY—Mexico said Tuesday that more than 26,000 people have been reported kidnapped or missing over a six-year period ending in November 2012, amid a bloody drug war.

The official accounting came a week after Human Rights Watch criticized the government for failing to investigate at least 249 “disappearances,” more than half allegedly perpetrated by members of the security forces.

The Interior Ministry’s human rights chief, Lia Limon, said 26,121 people were reported as disappeared or missing between December 2006 through November 2012, a period when former president Felipe Calderon was in the office.