The relatives of the neighbor of Roda de Berà (Tarragonès), Mercedes Arnau, who disappeared on May 13, are still looking for her. "We don't know what to do, we are desperate," said one of the victim's nephews two months after filing the complaint. Although the family believes that she could have left "disoriented", after falling into a depression weeks before, the Mossos d'Esquadra are keeping the investigation open pending new indications. In fact, they currently have seventy cases pending resolution. In 2022, more than 3,620 disappearances were reported in Catalonia and 26,000 in Spain. Of these, 92% correspond to people who disappeared without apparent cause.
For a couple of months, coinciding with the start of her retirement, Mercedes Arnau would go out early in the morning and go to have coffee in one of the bars in Roda de Berà. Afterwards, she would do the corresponding shopping, she would take a walk through the town and return home to eat. But on May 13, she did not. At three in the afternoon, her relatives reported her disappearance to the Local Police, who alerted the Mossos d'Esquadra to take charge of the investigation.
From the Group of People of the Investigation Unit of the Mossos of El Vendrell they have highlighted the importance of reporting these cases as soon as possible, since "the first minutes are the most important". In this way, they disproved the urban myth that insinuated that the victim's acquaintances had to wait 24 hours to be able to notify him. In fact, according to the latest report published by the Ministry of the Interior, 48% of disappearance reports are resolved in the first three days and 67% in the first week.
At the moment, the case of Mercedes Arnau is still within the 2% of the cases that the Mossos d'Esquadra keep open while waiting to find the missing person. One of her nephews, José Miguel Luque, believes that the depression that she had been carrying since she stopped working could have been a possible trigger. "She saw herself alone, after working a lifetime, she affected her emotionally a lot," Luque explained.
In fact, mental disorders are behind many disappearances. However, the Ministry of the Interior does not record what have been the reasons or causes that have caused the 23,863 disappearances without apparent cause in 2022 in Spain. Despite the fact that some associations, such as SOS Desaparecidos, pointed to a certain increase in the number of disappeared people with depression since the arrival of the pandemic, police sources denied this.
What they do confirm from the Office of Attention to the Families of Disappeared Persons is the psychological affectation that a disappearance supposes for the environment of the victim. "Not knowing what has happened and not having an answer is the most difficult thing to manage, because you can't start the duel," explained the head of the service, Laura Villanueva.
Some feelings shared by the nephews of the disappeared woman in Roda de Berà. Jordi Luque has confessed that he has been living with anxiety for two months and hoping that his aunt will come home. "We do not know if she is alive or dead. The only thing we know is that she has left home disoriented and has not returned," he explained.
The Ministry of the Interior, through the National Center for the Disappeared (CNDES), has stressed the importance of developing measures that help alleviate the social phenomenon of the disappearance of people without apparent cause. A problem that, as they assured, generates a great social alarm. In fact, it represents 92% of the total disappearances registered during 2022.
One of the corporals of the Group of Persons of the Investigation Unit of the Mossos d'Esquadra police station in El Vendrell has assured that the majority of the disappearances that occur in the territory are of "people who have wanted to leave" of their own free will own. He explains that there have been cases in which the disappeared person has been found, but that he has not wanted to inform the family, partner or acquaintances. From the Mossos they stressed that each disappearance is different and that everyone has the right to "disappear" without notifying it. However, they recommend informing the police officers to stop the investigation and allocate the resources to other cases.
