A search collective for missing people in Mexico discovered six clandestine graves containing the remains of at least nine victims in a remote rural zone of Miguel Alemán, Tamaulipas, just south of the Texas border. The territory is marked by clashes between the Gulf Cartel and the Northeast Cartel faction of Los Zetas.
The discovery took place near the town of Los Ángeles, Tamaulipas, in an area surrounded by abandoned agricultural warehouses left empty due to the violent dispute between the two criminal organizations. According to the search group, the bodies were buried just a few centimeters below the surface and showed signs of having been burned.
“Almost at ground level, we found skeletal remains; some still had pieces of clothing, while in other cases the bones showed exposure to high temperatures,” explained a spokesperson for the group who was not publicly identified due to threats that the group has received in the past.
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The members of the group, which is an NGO that turns over the scene to law enforcement after they make a discovery, suspect that the perpetrators burned tires to destroy the corpses, as steel wires characteristic of the internal reinforcements of tires were found among the disturbed earth.
The area of the discovery has a long history of being a strategic point for drug trafficking, fuel theft, and the smuggling of undocumented migrants to the United States.
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Armed clashes between the Gulf Cartel and the Cartel Del Noreste (CDN Los Zetas) are frequent there, which had previously prevented civilians from entering the area to search for their disappeared relatives.
The collective announced that it will continue excavations, given the evidence gathered, as it fears there may be more execution sites in the same area.
“We are going to keep searching. The indications we have suggest these are not the only graves,” the spokesman revealed.
Municipalities such as Miguel Alemán, Camargo, and nearby localities register a high number of disappearances. While official figures acknowledge at least 400 people reported missing in the region, civil organizations note that many families do not dare to file reports for fear of reprisals.
That recent discovery, along with the constant discoveries of mass graves and incineration sites in the border city of Reynosa, reflects the scale of the terror that cartels continue to bring to the region.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart News Foundation traveled to Mexico City and the states of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas, including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas, if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and their original Spanish. This article was written by “Francisco Morales” and “J.C. Sanchez” from Tamaulipas.
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