Protesters gathered in Mexico on Saturday to demand justice following a horrifying discovery Burnt bones, shoes, clothing At a suspicious drug cartel training ground.
According to AFP journalists and local reports, the demonstrations took place in cities across the country, including the capitals of Mexico City, Tijuana, Veracruz and San Luis Potosi, in western Jalisco, where the bodies were found.
A family seeking some of the more than 100,000 people who went missing in Mexico discovered the body on March 5th at a ranch where forced recruits were believed to have been held.
The Guerreros Buscadores Collective – a group dedicated to finding missing people – described the site as an “extinction center” with “secret crematoriums,” causing shock to a country swirling cartel-related violence.
Sayla Montez / Reuters
In the Mexican capital, demonstrators paid tribute to missing people with candles and shoes lines.
“I’ve started to speak out for my son and everyone,” said Aurora Corona, 58, whose son disappeared in the northeastern state of Nuevo Leon, Mexico last March.
She hoped the discovery would pressure them to do more to find the 124,059 people officially registered as missing in Mexico since 2006, when the government declared a war with drug cartels.
“Hopefully they’ll pay attention to us. They’re watching the horrors of the country we live in,” she said tears.
A group searching for missing Mexicans since October 2023 has reported the discovery of six more secret crematoriums in Jalisco.
Hundreds of graves have been found elsewhere in the country.
The United Nations Human Rights Office on Friday described Jalisco’s discovery as “a deeply disturbing reminder of lost trauma related to organized crime across the country.”
“This site is even more unsettling given that it was previously attacked by the National Guard and Jalisco State Prosecutor’s Office in September 2024.
Juan Carlos Perez, a 22-year-old student, hoped the protests serve as a wake-up call for action against rampaging criminal violence that has overwhelmed Mexico’s safety and judicial institutions for 20 years.
“My first reaction was sadly ‘Oh, one more’ (to the discovery) but then I began to follow the story and realized that it might have been me, that it might be my father, my mother,” he said.
Jalisco State Attorney General’s Office via the AP
Jalisco State Prosecutor Salvador Gonzalez de los Santos visited the ranch personally last week. He said investigators discovered six groups of bones, but the number of victims they belonged to was unknown. He did not provide details as to why investigators were unable to find what previously untrained civilians did, but said previous efforts were “inadequate.”
His office posted photos of all the evidence that relatives hoped to be able to identify their clothing.
In recent months, multiple mass graves have been discovered in Mexico. At least in January 56 bodies have been found In a large, unmarked tomb in northern Mexico, it is not far from the border with the US.
a A large number of graves The discovery in the suburbs of Guadalajara last December includes dozens of dismembered body parts, including 24 bodies, authorities said. That same month, Mexican authorities said they had recovered the total 31 A state plagued by cartel violence from the Chiapas pit.
Groups looking for missing people Say it that drug trafficking cartels and other organized crime gangs can use ovens to burn victims and leave no trace.
