The former The Police star has teamed up with organisers at Amnesty International to support a campaign to highlight the missing persons list, and on Saturday (10Oct15), he met with citizens searching for family members before his concert in Morelos.

"I met with some of the families, but they are just the tip of the iceberg," a statement from Sting reads. "I call on the Mexican government to follow up on these cases far more vigorously, to find and prosecute those responsible and to prevent through legislation this scourge of disappearances and human rights abuses.

"It is not hard to imagine the anguish and torment that families undergo when a loved one disappears, vanishes without trace or explanation, when attempts to find them or discover their fate are frustrated by the apparent indifference of the authorities to a situation that has become an epidemic in Mexico."

According to AI Americas director Erika Guevara Rosas, nearly 27,000 people have disappeared in Mexico since 2006. Many have been linked to the country's notorious drug trade.

Just weeks ago, director Alejandro Monteverde's brother and father were found dead after they were kidnapped by members of a drug cartel gang outside their home in Veracruz on 4 September (15).