Last year's exercise was very special. In May 2018, we managed to initiate a judicial procedure to launch the second excavation in the Landes, hoping to find our brother's body again. This allowed us to breathe.

At this point, it should be recalled that in December 2015, thanks to the data provided by a former CESID agent to journalist Iñaki Errazkin, the case was reopened at the National Hearing in September 2016. For this reason, the head of Examining Court No. 2, Ismael Moreno, asked the French justice for an excavation, for which the expert reports made by Coroner Paco Etxeberria were relevant, since according to the description made by the former agent, two concrete places could be the most likely for the presence of our brother's remains.

After six months of work between the judicial authorities and the French police, the date for excavation was set: 4 April 2017. The French authorities decided to dig in one place, which they referred to in the reports, and completely dismissed the excavation in second place. After five hours of work in the morning and afternoon, without finding anything, the excavations were completed. The work that Judge Moreno requested in the Rogatory Committee was therefore complied with by the French authorities. Thus, both the Hearing Judge and the Prosecutor’s Office were in favour of re-closing the case. We only had one solution: to keep fighting in the curves of the law and the courts to get them looked at in the second place where they had been excluded.

And to our astonishment, the appeal we presented was accepted and our ambitions, including that of making a further plea to the French authorities that it should also be excavated in this second area. Therefore, Judge Ismael Moreno had to repeat the request for a request to the French authorities, which were arrested. Since all the previous investigations had already been carried out in the first session, even with pessimism, we believed that this second excavation would be carried out by autumn 2018 at the latest.

The days went away and the call we expected did not arrive. Our mom knew from the beginning that her greatest enemy was time. To know and to feel that it is being turned off and that you have not achieved what you wanted to achieve with a lifelong struggle: to recover the son you took you. On November 29, his mother died. Two weeks before, at home, he would say: “Eneko, what is going on? I can't wait any longer. We go to that place and we will.” I said to him, “What mom, are we going to go through the house to take the plagues? Aguanta, mother, aguanta. We'll bring it home. Hold on."

And today is the day, thirteen months after the second plea, we still have no answer from the French authorities. They have not yet answered the Spanish justice, and we do not know why this second excavation has been postponed. We don't get into our heads what reasons there can be for it.

This year, as our mother Celes is not present, we have decided not to carry out any act of tribute. Let no one think that means that we give up. Don't even think about it. We will continue to fight to recover the remains of José Miguel, who is aware, as the United Nations acknowledged, that we are relatives of a victim of enforced disappearance, and that we have the right to truth, justice, reparation and assurance that the facts will not be repeated. This decision must therefore be understood as a parenthesis that we wanted to open at the moment.

Finally, we would like to thank all the people and groups who have been with us for all these years. We know that without your help we would not achieve everything we have achieved. And we also know that when we decide to close this parenthesis, all your help will be needed once again, necessary and welcome.

Eneko Etxeberria Alvarez, brother of "Naparra"