Number of the Day: 26,121

0.02 percent may not seem like a large amount.

How about with a little context —  0.02 percent of Mexico's population?

Ok, that still doesn't seem too staggering. 

But when that seemingly small percetage is presented as an actual number, 26,121— and when that actual number is assigned to individal names and faces of those people who have reportedly gone missing in Mexico under Felipe Calderon's six-year term, then the picture becomes a little more clear and lot more upsetting.

The official statistic, released in an annoucement this week by Lia Limon, the subsecretary for legal affairs and human rights under new President Enrique Peña Nieto, includes people who have been reported missing between December 2006 and November 2012.

Limon's announcement came shortly after a scathing report was released by the Human Rights Watch that laid much blame on Calderon's security forces, who have reportedly played a prominent role in many of the kidnappings and disappearances in Mexico in recent years.

The Calderon administration's failure to investigate a great majority of these cases has only compounded the anguish of the families of the missing, according to the human rights report.

Shortly after Limon announced the staggering number of missing people, a former member of Calderon's Cabinet disputed the figure, saying the only registry on disappeared people contains 5,319 names.

Alas, the list has remains a subject of heated controversy.

Currently, the Peña Nieto government is working to clarify who on the missing persons list may have been a victim of crime, and who may have gone missing for reasons like migration to the United States, a family dispute or a natural disaster.