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MEXICO-DRUGS-CRIME
Mexican investigators find 31 bodies in secret graves
GUADALAJARA, Mexico, Nov 22, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Investigators have found 31
bodies hidden in clandestine graves outside Mexico’s second-largest city
Guadalajara, authorities in violence-torn Jalisco state said Thursday.
The work of uncovering the clandestine graves began earlier this month
after authorities secured a 3,400 square foot (320 square meter) plot of land
in Tlajomulco, a suburb of Guadalajara.
“At the end of the work on the property… 31 bodies were located in the
area, corresponding to six women and 25 women,” the Jalisco prosecutor’s
office said in a statement.
Ten of the bodies were identified, nine of which corresponded to people
who had been reported missing.
Prosecutors and forensic officers excavated the graves with the help of
heavy machinery, dogs and ground penetrating radar.
Investigators have also identified two other nearby plots where they
believe there could be more graves. Forensic experts will begin investigating
those areas on Friday.
Jalisco has seen violence linked to organized crime rebound in recent
years due to the presence of the Jalisco New Generation, one of Mexico’s most
brutal drug cartels.
Violence has spiked since March 2017 after an internal split in the
cartel, which also competes with criminal groups in the neighboring
Guanajuato state.
In one suburb of Guadalajara, investigators discovered a property with 30
buried bodies in May.
Another grave with 34 bodies was found in the same neighborhood in
September.
Some 3,200 military personnel have been deployed to Jalisco in an attempt
to contain violence linked to organized crime.
Mexican authorities have recorded nearly 50,000 cases of missing persons,
the vast majority since 2006, when the government deployed the army to fight
drug trafficking.
More than 3,000 clandestine graves with more than 5,000 bodies have been
discovered since 2006, according to official data. Many of the dead have not
been identified.
BSS/AFP/BZC/1255HRS