SALVATIERRA, Mexico (AP) – Search groups dug Thursday in search of more remains in a center of Mexico where 59 bodies have already been discovered in clandestine pits during the following week in a domain known as the cartel battlefield.
It was the largest cemetery of its kind discovered to date in Guanajuato, the state with the highest number of homicides in Mexico, larger clandestine cemeteries have been recorded in other parts of the country.
What catches the eye of this discovery, but also reflects the predominant point of fear, is that the site is in the city of Salvatierra, not in a desolate domain in the countryside.
The head of the National Official Commission of Inquiry, Karla Quintana, said in an interview with W Radio that other people needed to know that the bodies were being discarded there.
“This position is in a neighborhood,” Quintana said. ” To get there you have to pass the houses, you have to cross the streets Array. . . People know that.
The grounds are a wasteland just under a mile (kilometer) from the main square of the city, next to the Lerma River, on the other side of which there is a park, and near an abattoir.
Quintana said the data came about two weeks ago from relatives looking for those who didn’t enjoy it and that researchers have discovered signs that more bodies may be buried there, so the search continues. The purpose is to find the bodies, identify them and leave. Return the remains to their families, he said.
Quintana said many of the victims gave the impression of being young and that there were a significant number of women. Quintana announced the discovery Wednesday night, calling it a “sad and terrible discovery. “
The bodies were extracted last week from 52 wells in a Salvatierra asset, a scenario deemed harmful enough for the Army and the National Guard to ensure the safety of the raids. there is known to be a significant presence of organized crime.
On Thursday, the burial pit site was cordoned off by police.
Leticia Valencia, the mother of an absent man, waited outside the police perimeter, hoping she would be allowed in to look for symptoms that her son might have been among the bodies buried there.
“What I have to do is let me in, see if I recognize any of the garments they registered,” Valencia.
Valencia’s son, José Manuel Fabion Valencia, disappeared with a friend in 2018, and has not been heard since, it is a depression story that has also been heard in Guanajuato.
But when the images began circulating on social media this week of excavations on the ground, among the elements of the tombs a boot that Valencia imagines is that of his son.
This ray of hope, at least locating your son’s remains and nevertheless being able to say goodbye, led her to the excavation site.
“He may be here, ” he said.
Guanajuato has been the scene of bloody battles between the Jalisco cartel and the gangs supported through the Sinaloa cartel.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Thursday that the stage in Guanajuato was “very difficult”. He said the deployment of the National Guard in the state at least allowed the government to succeed in spaces that in the past were inaccessible by the influence of the groomed. Crime.