Federal authorities are taking to the airwaves to call attention to unsolved homicide and missing person cases on the Navajo Nation.
FBI announced Tuesday that it is running a 60-second radio ad in the Navajo language to call attention to what family members and advocacy groups have described as a crisis affecting Indian Country.
The radio spot comes as some states put more resources toward the reporting and investigation of such cases.
New Mexico recently adopted legislation to ensure more effective coordination among law enforcement agencies, while Washington created a first-in-the-nation statewide alert system for missing Native Americans.
In 2018, U.S. Congress voted to expand the Amber Alert system to Native American reservations.
In 2021, the Urban Indian Health Institute ranked Arizona as the state with the third highest number of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in urban areas.