A documentary focuses on the people who lost relatives during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Guayaquil, Ecuador, in March and April 2020, but were never given their loved ones' bodies.
These people, at least 100, have been searching for almost a year for their family members to no avail. They have gone without any answers from those who were responsible for the handling of their loved ones' corpses.
Laura, Jenny, Karen, and Greta are featured in Los que no aparecen (The missing ones). They narrate how they have lived the past year: the search for the bodies, the incomplete mourning, the almost supernatural strength that has helped them sustain a struggle that many others have abandoned in despair.
The doc portrays the tragedy and the yearlong struggle, the demands and hopes of these women who epitomize and personify the grief and the injustice, the pain and the human rights violation.
After one year of the pandemic in Ecuador, in which the city of Guayaquil was the epicenter, 60 bodies remain unidentified. They don’t match any of the families who are still looking for their missing loved ones. Forty families are searching for the bodies of relatives, yet their DNA does not match the 60 bodies.
