Sylvie Claire / June 3, 2023
Some 45 bags containing human remains were discovered in a ravine in the state of Jalisco, in western Mexico.
Some 45 bags containing human remains were discovered in a ravine in the western Mexican state of Jalisco, during the search for eight young people who have been missing for ten days, local authorities announced on Wednesday.
"Forty-five bags containing human remains corresponding to men and women were extracted," said the state prosecutor's office in a statement, which was still gathering evidence on Thursday.
The discovery was made on Tuesday at the bottom of a 40-metre ravine in the municipality of Zapopan, on the outskirts of Guadalajara, capital of the state of Jalisco.
The authorities had launched an operation to find two women and six men, aged in their thirties, who had been missing since May 20.
The reports on the search for the missing were filed separately and on different days, but the authorities realized that they were all working in one call center.
The place where the young men were working is in the same area as where the human remains were found.
According to the initial findings, the call center was involved in illegal activities. However, this hypothesis was rejected by the relatives of the missing, who accused the authorities of criminalizing the victims.
In recent years, human remains have been found in bags or in clandestine graves in various parts of the state of Jalisco.
In 2021, some 70 bags containing the human remains of eleven people were discovered in Tonala, near Guadalajara.
Mexico has recorded more than 340,000 murders and some 100,000 disappearances, mainly attributed to criminal organizations, since the launch in December 2006 of a vast and controversial military operation to combat drug trafficking.