Mexico City, Mexico - Relatives of Central American migrants who vanished while chasing the American dream began a journey across Mexico on Monday to call attention to thousands of missing people cases.

A caravan of 47 fathers, mothers, and siblings of lost, undocumented migrants made its first stop in Tenosique, in the southeastern state of Tabasco, where a Honduran mother was reunited with her son after a nine-year separation.

"Silvia Campos had an emotional reunion with her son Serbelio Mateos, now a construction worker in Tabasco with a Mexican wife and children," said Ruben Figueroa, caravan organizer from the Mesoamerican Migrant Movement.

The caravan, dubbed "Releasing Hope," left from Guatemala and was expected to arrive in Mexico City by mid-week.

The goal is to visit 14 of Mexico's 32 federal entities in search of lost relatives from Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

According to government figures, around 140,000 Central Americans enter into Mexico illegally each year in hope of reaching the distant United States.

The Mesoamerican Migrant Movement says about 70,000 Central Americans have disappeared in Mexico in the last six years, a period that coincides with the intensification of the country's brutal drug war.

In August 2010, seventy-two undocumented migrants were killed in the town of San Fernando, in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, which borders the United States, after allegedly refusing to join a criminal gang.

"Since the government's war against organized crime began, the deaths and disappearances of Central American migrants crossing into Mexico have not been investigated, denying the right to truth and justice to their relatives," Figueroa alleged.