Some 45 bags containing human remains were discovered in a ravine in the state of Jalisco, in western Mexico, 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 matching males and females have been extracted,” the state’s attorney’s office, which was continuing to gather evidence Thursday, said in a statement.
The discovery was made Tuesday at the bottom of a 40-meter ravine located 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 around 30 and missing since May 20.
The reports concerning the searches for the missing were filed separately and on different days, but the authorities realized that all worked in a call center.
The place where these young people worked is in the same area as where the human remains were found.
According to the first elements of the investigation, the call center would be involved in illegal activities. A hypothesis however rejected by the relatives of the disappeared, who accused the authorities of criminalizing the victims.
In recent years, human remains have been found in bags or in clandestine graves in different areas of the state of Jalisco.
Thus in 2021, some 70 bags containing the human remains belonging to 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 aimed at combating drug trafficking.