Dismembered human remains found last week in an abandoned house in Mexico’s violence-wracked Guanajuato state belong to a total of 32 victims, prosecutors said Monday.
The state prosecutor’s office said 15 people had been positively identified so far from the remains, which were discovered during a search for missing people in the city of Irapuato.
The remains were in “fragmented and complex” condition, it said, adding that this had complicated the identification process.
Local media reports said investigators had found body parts in plastic bags.
Relatives of missing persons, who belong to a collective called “Hasta encontrarte” (“Until I find you”), visited the site Monday, hoping for news of their loved ones or fresh evidence.
“We hope to find our loved ones,” a woman who requested anonymity for safety reasons told AFP. “It’s been many years and we still know nothing. When these mass graves are found, we want to be present.”
Organized crime groups frequently bury their victims in clandestine graves. The Mexican government’s current tally of disappeared is nearly 132,000.
Guanajuato in central Mexico is a thriving industrial hub and home to several popular tourist destinations, but also the country’s deadliest state due to gang turf wars, according to official homicide statistics.
Much of the violence in Guanajuato is linked to conflict between the Santa Rosa de Lima gang and the Jalisco New Generation cartel, one of the most powerful in the Latin American nation. The Jalisco cartel is one of several that has been designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the Trump administration.
Guanajuato recorded more than 3,100 murders last year, the most of any Mexican state, accounting for 10.5 percent of cases nationwide, according to official figures. It also had about 3,600 missing persons cases, out of more than 120,000 countrywide.
The bloodshed in the state has continued this year.
Last month, a local Mexican government official was shot dead while attending an amateur basketball game in Guanajuato.
In June, 11 people were killed and about 20 others injured in a shooting targeting a neighborhood party in Irapuato.
In May, 17 bodies were found by investigators in an abandoned house in the same city.
That same month, officials said gunmen opened fire and killed seven people, including children, in Guanajuato, and officers found two banners with messages alluding to the Santa Rosa de Lima gang.
In February, five women and three men were shot dead in the street in Guanajuato. In January, security forces clashed with gunmen in the state, leaving 10 suspected criminals dead and three police officers injured.
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