Mexicans seek answers after bones, shoes found at cartel camp

A grisly discovery of charred bones, shoes and clothing at a suspected drug cartel training ground has prompted demands for answers and justice from relatives of the more than 100,000 people missing in Mexico.

A group of families searching for people who have disappeared reported the find  this month at a ranch in the western state of Jalisco where forced recruits are thought to have been held.

The Guerreros Buscadores collective described the site as an "extermination center" with "clandestine crematoriums," causing shock in a country that has become inured to spiraling cartel-related violence.

"We're talking about a recruitment center for our youth," said the group's leader, Indira Navarro.

The property had already been searched in September following clashes in the area between the military and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of Mexico's most powerful and violent drug trafficking groups.

The Jalisco state prosecutor's office reported at the time that it found skeletal remains.

Last week, the collective discovered more buried bones, dozens of shoes, and other objects that apparently went unnoticed during the initial search.

The United Nations Human Rights Office on Friday described it as a "deeply disturbing reminder of the trauma of disappearances linked to organized crime across the country."

"The discovery is all the more disturbing given that this site had been previously raided as recently as September 2024 by the National Guard and the Jalisco State Prosecutor's Office, without crucial evidence being detected," it added.

- 'Remember I love you' -

Following anonymous tip-offs, the collective began digging at the ranch in the remote community of Teuchitlan, accompanied at times by an AFP photographer.

In three holes they discovered cremated bone fragments, and what they described as crematoriums.

They also found about 200 pairs of shoes, piles of clothing, suitcases, hygiene products, notes about weapons and a letter from a recruit.

"My love, if one day I never return, I only ask that you remember how much I love you," wrote a young man who was allegedly kidnapped in February 2024, but who, according to Guerreros Buscadores, returned to his family in October.

The group also discovered spent gun cartridges, target practice sheets, and an altar to the "Santa Muerte" (Saint Death), a cult deeply rooted in Mexico's criminal underworld.

Since October 2023, groups searching for missing Mexicans have reported the discovery of six more alleged clandestine crematoriums in Jalisco.

Hundreds of graves have been discovered elsewhere in the country, such as in Bartolina in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, where authorities unearthed 500 kilos of remains between 2017 and 2021 at what they called an "extermination site."

The Jalisco prosecutor's office has admitted that its initial investigations in Teuchitlan were "insufficient."

"It's not credible that a situation of this nature would not have been known to local authorities," said Mexico's Attorney General Alejandro Gertz, who took over the case this week at the request of President Claudia Sheinbaum.

Sheinbaum said more evidence was needed before conclusions could be drawn.

After further inspections, the Jalisco prosecutor's office said on Thursday that it had found no "structures that served as ovens," although it continues to search for possible remains.

- Authorities overwhelmed -

More than 124,000 people have been officially registered as missing in Mexico, mostly since 2006 when the government declared war on drug cartels.

Around 480,000 people have been murdered.

Jalisco is the state with the most missing persons -- nearly 15,000.

Rampant criminal violence, as well as links between corrupt officials and criminal groups, means that Mexico's security and justice institutions are overwhelmed.

In 2023, Jalisco had 798 prosecutors investigating 137,100 crimes committed that year, an average of 172 cases per officer, according to official statistics.

Around 40 percent of Mexico's missing are men aged 20-39.

Jorge Ramirez Plascencia, a researcher at the University of Guadalajara, thinks the shoes and clothing at the ranch probably belonged to forced recruits who were given military-style fatigues after being trained.

The remains were likely those of "murdered recruits," he told AFP.

Practices such as incinerating bodies are "to train them in torture, dismemberment and tolerance of death," he said.

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