“Mom, my mobile card is broken, I don’t have a phone, we can’t talk.” This is the last conversation Ignacio Palmero -Nacho- had with his mother. He disappeared in Tenerife when he was about to turn 30 on July 14, 2021.. It was precisely a greeting to which the young man did not respond that set off the alarms. On the other side was his mother, Lola. “When I saw this there was no way to contact him, i went directly Civil Guard“.
Alert has been activated. A year later, nothing, no clues, leading to his son. Nothing sheds any light on his disappearance.
“I live on a roller coaster. I have bad days, bad days, terrible days, terrible moments…”. Her name is Lola Hijar and looking for his son for a year. He just disappeared. His trace has disappeared.
Lola visualizes, thinks, throws. “We have no idea,” he complains, “he may be fine, he may be confused, he may be in a centre, he may have killed himself… There are many options.” He hasn’t rested since: “He managed to get on board… When we have nothing, everything comes to mind”. The only certainty is “it’s lost, they can’t stop looking”.
“My card is broken”
July 14, 2021. Nacho opens the Messenger app and writes a message to his mother. “I didn’t have a phone,” Lola recalls. “She wrote that her mobile card was broken and she couldn’t call me.” They lived separately for several years: in La Laguna (Tenerife); him in La Palma. They saw each other, called each other, possessed each other. “I’m going to ask you for a copy and I’ll send it to you by courier, boy,” she told him, “the phone was in my name, so I did: I bought one and sent it to him but he hasn’t received it anymore“.
A week later, on his birthday, the alarms went off. “on the 20th there was no way to find it. Neither by messenger, nor by phone… I tried to congratulate him, but it didn’t work. Next day I went Civil Guard, I condemned on the 21st. I went to his house on the 22nd.His son was not there. “She came out with her wallet, ID, driver’s license and insurance card. The rest stayed at home, without phones. Her car and motorcycle were also there.”
“I want to disappear”
Lola waited at home, she didn’t come. He tried to reconstruct his son’s last steps to facilitate his location. “The days before there were ups and downs,” says her mother. “I was down. Desperate.” A disagreement with a manager cost him his job.. “I told him that if he wanted me to go to his house, he would go often, that he would stay there for a few days. Other times he would come…”, she answered no. “I want out of here, all I want is to disappear. answered. I’ve said it many times, we’ve all said it… but yeah, My son has disappeared.”
drift
Clever, cultured and intelligent, Nacho moved to Tenerife at the age of 21. “Since his father died. He went to the chalet and the disaster started a little bit here“, complains Lola. “It was great at first: it was lonely, freedom… A young boy, a chalet… His home was everyone’s home: music, video games… until he walked away.” “began to become addicted”.
Lola, awake, tried to pull him out of the well. “I took him to psychologists, psychiatrists … but there was no way”, his character changed. “He was going in and out of some centers and his friends weren’t with him because it was difficult, it was complicated.”
Finally, the piece he had missed days before it disappeared, arrived. “He was cleaning the roads, look, it was hard work but he was happy,” his mother recalls. “He had a disagreement, the summary is that they wanted throwing the garbage they collect into the garden. Nacho said it was an ecological attack. He’ll load it into the truck and throw it in the right place.” They told him no and said he wouldn’t bother to come back. It was deadly, deadly… deadly.”
“A man from the bar said he saw her walking near her house on Saturday the 19th and nothing else is known.” Lola scanned the nearby beaches with SOS Disappeared, “they knew him, they’d seen him, but they didn’t know anything for a long time.” The investigation did not proceed.
“I filed a complaint with the Civil Guard but I’m on another island. They’re taking the action and going to the National Police because La Laguna belongs to the police,” Lola says. “Can’t you bring the dogs?” asked the woman. “Look, the dogs are in Las Palmas and they bring them for free… It’s not worth it because you already know what we’re looking for,” he said.
Lola looked at the agent, “What are we looking for? He’ll be the one we’re looking for, right? You understand me, tell me.” Lola shuts up. “I was looking for a corpse, she meant. They decided that Nacho committed suicide. They left no other choice“. Lola breaks the silence again: “Then we should look for the body, right?”
One way tickets
“Your son has not left the island,” said an agent as soon as the investigation began. “We discovered that when the bank accounts were checked. I had four one-way tickets: one to Barcelona, two to Madrid and one by boat.“. In principle, he did not use them.
“We have no evidence to confirm anything,” Lola explains. “There are many options. It’s not hard to get lost on a cargo ship here. For example, if you go on a ship to Africa, you will not receive anything in the bank there, your accounts will remain inactive as they are.”
Living in his house, “I calm down in my garden in the face of pain, I work in my garden” seeks answers and draws options. “She said to me many times: ‘Mom, why don’t I dare, but I’d steal an ID and go with someone else’sHe doesn’t know if he dared or not, “it can be done. If no one looks at you, they see that the bill matches the DNI. Now in a cap and mask epidemic…. why?”
detoxification
Friends, acquaintances, neighbors, Lola traveled the island to ask about him. “Someone from a nearby bar told me, ‘I could have sworn I saw him with a bunch of guys. detox centersWhatThey don’t go into the bar because they can’t…” With this information, he went to the police station. “I told them that there was another option, that he went to a center, only what they wanted. Your name. You come in, you work, you have food, you sleep, and you disappear for a while.” He didn’t look at himself. they said there are more than 30 centers on the island. I tried to call myself but they couldn’t inform me because of their privacy policy.”
Smart, “too much…”, draws her mother. “She was like a little bear, so warm, loving, so noble, so good…”. Not nachos. Lola, there isn’t a day that I don’t think about her. She remembers her smile, “it was very nice”, her jokes, “it was funny, with a very subtle humour”. He dreams of catching the waves, “loving”, reading, “loving history”, enjoying it… Undoubtedly he is waiting; I’m waiting, no more.