After a six months-plus investigation led by the families, government investigators in the Gulf state of Veracruz said on Tuesday they had found more than 250 skulls in a shallow graves in a field, a record in the atrocities in Mexico.
On Thursday, reporters gained access for the first time to the lush tropical area spotted with lagoons near a current major expansion of Veracruz city’s busy seaport.
Mothers of missing sons came out of a service of Pedro Alberto Huesca, whose remains were found at one of the unmarked graves where skulls were found on a plot of land, in Palmas de Abajo, Veracruz, Mexico March 16, 2017. PHOTO: REUTERS/Carlos Jasso
The site was uncovered last year after a tip to members of Colectivo Solecito, one of several groups of frustrated relatives searching for the tens of thousands of people who have gone missing during the gang drug wars and whose cases are unsolved.
“The authorities don’t care about searching. Here, those who search are the parents,” said Rosalia Castro, who has been looking for her son since 2011. “The attention of the prosecutor’s office has been zero.”
The groups’ success in uncovering evidence of atrocities highlights the dismal human rights record of President Enrique Pena Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
It is also a reminder that while U.S. President Donald Trump’s controversial immigration policies and planned border wall have provided a distraction from Mexico’s woes, crime and corruption continue to dog the party that hopes to stay in power in presidential elections next year.
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Source: reuters.com
