Mexico: Remains of 59 bodies found over a week at a site in 'cartel battleground'

Search teams are continuing to dig up after 59 bodies were found at a site in central Mexico in clandestine graves over the past week in an area known as 'cartel battleground'. Karla Quintana, the head of the official National Search Commission said in an interview that it was important for people to know that the bodies were being disposed of there. This site has been considered as the ‘largest burial site’ in Guanajuato. 

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(Members of a family search group enter the site on a bus where mass graves were found in Salvatierra, Guanajuato state, Mexico, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020. Image Credits: AP)

(National Guard police enter the site where mass graves were found in Salvatierra, Guanajuato state, Mexico. Image Credits: AP)

(Soldiers stand guard near the site where mass graves were found in Salvatierra, Guanajuato state, Mexico. Image Credits: AP)

(Soldiers stand guard near the site where mass graves were found in Salvatierra, Guanajuato state, Mexico. Image Credits: AP)

Search operation continues 

Quintana said, “This place is in a neighbourhood. To get there you have to pass homes, you have to pass streets ... the people know”. Quintana stated that it all started when some relatives were searching for their loved ones. Also, searchers have found ‘indications’ that more bodies can be buried and therefore, they will continue to dig up. She said that the goal is to find the bodies, identify them and then return them to their loved ones. Calling it “a sad and terrible discovery”, she said many victims seemed to be young and many of them were women. 

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Andrés Manuel López Obrador, President of Mexico, also spoke about the tense situation in Guanajuato. He said that the situation is “very difficult”. He added that the deployment of the National Guard helped in allowing authorities to reach areas that were previously inaccessible due to the trap of ‘organized crime’. Guanajuato has been a site of such crimes since the bloody battles between the Jalisco cartel and local gangs were backed by the Sinaloa cartel.

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(Image Credits: AP)