More than 2000 skulls found in secret graves in Mexico

MORE than 1 000 clandestine graves have been discovered in Mexico, with over 2 014 skulls found, according to a new report by academics and human rights organisations.

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

Ruiz said only 12 state attorney-general offices had 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.

The country’s decades-long military-led crackdown on drug cartels has resulted in hundreds of “disappeared” people with many who 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 realised what happened here, and that vehicles were coming in and out, if not with the complicity of the government’s authority,” Ortiz had said. “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 Peña Nieto took office in 2012. – teleSUR