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MEXICO CITY – Police found 166 human skulls buried in a clandestine grave in the violent state of Veracruz, revealing even more horrific evidence of the Mexican epidemic of kidnappings and killings.
According to the prosecutor's office in Veracruz, the investigators were looking for remains for more than 30 days using drones, radar and metal probes, after being informed of the common grave by an informant.
Among the skulls, the researchers found 114 pieces of ID and more than 200 clothes, according to the prosecutor. The remains, discovered in 32 separate pits dug on a site of about 300 square meters in the central part of the state, were allegedly buried at least two years ago.
Veracruz has become in recent years synonymous with mass graves. More than 700 people are currently missing in the state.
Investigators, often alongside the families of the missing, have found the remains of hundreds of dead victims of the bloody war between the Mexican army, the police and members of various armed factions, including the cartel of the new Jalisco generation The cartel and remains of Los Zetas, a group of drug traffickers made up of former soldiers of the Mexican special forces units.
In August 2016, a group of bereaved mothers looking for their missing children, acting on an anonymous tip, led the investigators to a site that eventually produced 258 human skulls, considered the largest pit in history Mexican.
"I want to reiterate the promise of the State Attorney General, to explain the seriousness of the disappearance of people daily, with seriousness, diligence and professionalism," said Attorney General Jorge Winckler Ortiz in a statement.
He added that family members would be notified later this week. The prosecutor's office added that the families of the disappeared had not been involved in the search that led to Thursday's conclusion.
The disappearance of people has become one of the major societal dramas of modern Mexico. Many of the disappeared were passers-by who were kidnapped, and many were probably killed by violent gangs fighting territorial wars, according to the authorities. Others could have had links to the drug world or were kidnapped by corrupt security forces.
By the end of April, more than 37,000 people were missing in Mexico, according to the National Missing Persons Registry.
The disappearances drew attention after 43 students were kidnapped by police in Iguala town in the south of the country in September 2014 and handed over to an alleged local drug gang, a case that prompted federal authorities and state to take additional measures to solve the problem.
The resurgence of violence in Mexico has become a major issue for the new Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who will take office on 1 December. More than 31,000 people were murdered in the country last year. at the National Statistics Agency.
"The levels of outrageous violence are the most important issue facing the new government. This is the biggest problem in Mexico, "said Ricardo Monreal, majority leader of the Mexican Senate and member of the Morena party of Lopez Obrador.
The Jalisco New Generation cartel, the fastest-growing drug cartel in Mexico, and Los Zetas have been fighting for years against territorial wars in Veracruz. In 2011, 35 bodies were thrown in the suburbs of the city of Veracruz. It is generally believed that the Jalisco cartel took control of the state in recent years, after the federal authorities decimated Los Zetas.
Criminal gangs are increasingly tending to get rid of evidence of murder rather than showing the bodies of their victims as a means of terrorizing their rivals, said Alejandro Schtulmann, a political risk consultant at Empra.
He said that the discovery of Veracruz is an indication that the problem of gang violence is worse than expected and that the number of homicides alone "does not reflect the exact dimensions of the crisis, which is much more serious" .
Many of the missing people are young people from disintegrated homes who are not even wanted. Those who are wanted are wanted by their relatives and a handful of NGOs, he said. Authorities are "technically and operationally overwhelmed" by the problem, he added.
Authorities estimate that most of the mass graves date from the government of Javier Duarte, state governor from 2010 to 2016, who is in jail awaiting a trial for embezzlement. The former police chief of Duarte, Arturo Bermúdez, is also in pre-trial detention and is facing charges of enforced disappearance. Both declared themselves innocent.
"This is the latest confirmation of the degree of impunity of the drug gangs operating in Veracruz during the Duarte government. It allowed this to happen, "said Maria Elena Morera, the head of Causa en Común, a victims' advocacy group.
-Anthony Harrup contributed to this article.
Write to Robbie Whelan at [email protected] and Juan Montes at [email protected]
