Mexico, April 12: Mexican authorities have recovered a total of 88 bodies, who are said to have been killed in drug-related violence, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas in the past weeks.
In an investigation last week, 72 of bodies were found in hidden graves, whereas the other 16 were found this week in four other graves around the community of San Fernando, in far northeastern Mexico, about 160 kilometers south of the border with the United States.
Investigations started after reports of bus passengers being kidnapped. The bodies likely belong to victims of Mexico’s ongoing drug wars.
The police uncovered the additional graves when an arrested suspect, identified as Armando Morales Uscanga, led them to the four other graves.
Morales acknowledged “his participation in the assassination and illegal burial of 43 bodies,” a military statement said.
So far, at least 15 people have been detained in connection with the mass graves.
It is believed that the drug cartels staged the bus kidnappings in order to secure ransom and had killed all the victims in a two-day period when they did not succeed.
More than 5,000 people have been reported missing in Mexico, and many are presumed to be victims of the drug war, according to Mexico’s Human Rights.
The upward trend in violence comes despite efforts by Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who launched a war on drug cartels in the country in 2006 and ordered the deployment of about 50,000 troops across the country.
——–Agencies