Dozen skeletons found in hidden graves in Mexico near U.S. border
mexico city — Mexican authorities have discovered 12 bodies in clandestine graves in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, officials said Thursday.
Authorities discovered 11 graves containing 12 skeletons in the city of Ascension near the U.S. border, the state attorney’s office said in a statement.
“The discovery was made during tracking operations conducted on December 18, 19 and 20,” the statement said.
“The unidentified skeleton and evidence have been transferred to the Ciudad Juárez Forensic Services Laboratory” for possible identification and determination of the probable cause of death, the statement said.
Mexico’s drug cartels and kidnapping gangs often use such clandestine body dumps to dispose of the bodies of victims or rivals. This horrific practice adds to Mexico’s huge problem of missing persons, which currently numbers approximately 120,000 people.
Relatives of most missing persons are left largely alone to search for their loved ones, often forming volunteer search teams that head into the desert to find secret graves. It’s unclear whether these volunteer groups helped authorities find Ascension’s grave.
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Chihuahua has been hit for years by violence linked to organized crime that serves as a route for drug trafficking and smuggling of migrants into the United States.
According to official figures, 3,927 missing persons have been recorded since 1952. Jalisco and Tamaulipas are the states most affected by the violence, with more than 13,000 missing people in each state during the same period.
More than 450,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since 2006, when the government deployed the military to combat human trafficking, according to official figures.
