More Than 1000 Clandestine Graves Found in Mexico, Report Confirms

By teleSUR

27 June 17

The country’s decades-long, military-led crackdown on drug cartels has resulted in hundreds of “disappeared” people.

ore than 1000 clandestine graves have been discovered in Mexico, with over 2014 skulls found, according to a new report written by academic and human rights organizations.

The report, titled “Violence and terror: Findings on clandestine graves in Mexico”, collected data from attorney general offices from several states, according to two authors, Jorge Ruiz and Monica Meltis, who have submitted their research to the Ibero-American University.

Ruiz told Prensa Latina that only 12 state attorney general offices provided information on the clandestine graves found in their territories.

He also noted that the states with the highest-levels of violence in the nation, such as Guerrero, Jalisco and Chihuahua, were among those that denied having information.

According to the study, the states with the largest number of clandestine graves include Guerrero, Jalisco Chihuahua, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon and Michoacan.

The country’s decades-long, military-led crackdown on drug cartels has resulted in hundreds of “disappeared” people, with many that are missing or who have been murdered, having no known links to criminal gangs.

In March, Veracruz Attorney General Jorge Winckler Ortiz accused the Mexican government of knowing about the mass grave of at least 242 bodies that were discovered in his state earlier that month.

“It is impossible for anyone to have realized what happened here, and that vehicles were coming in and out, if not with the complicity of government authority,” Ortiz had said, HispanTV reports.

“I do not understand how else.”

In 2016, more than 20,000 homicides were reported across Mexico, the highest level registered since Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto took office in 2012.