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Death Toll Of Mexican Mass Graves Rises To 116

Jessika Walsten |
April 13, 2011 | 10:57 a.m. PDT

Deputy Editor

 

Protesters in Mexico City voice the anger over the thousands killed in Mexico's drug war. (Photo by the Knight Foundation via Flickr)
Protesters in Mexico City voice the anger over the thousands killed in Mexico's drug war. (Photo by the Knight Foundation via Flickr)
The casualties of Mexico's drug war rose Tuesday when Mexican authorities announced the discovery of 28 more bodies in a series of mass graves, bringing the total found so far to 116.

Authorities found the bodies after an investigation was launched into reports of mass kidnappings from buses along a highway in Tamaulipas, a northeastern state.

"Organised crime, in its desperation, resorts to committing extraordinary atrocities that we cannot and should not tolerate as a government and as a society," said Francisco Blake Mora, Mexico's interior minister. "Those responsible for this massacre will be punished for it."

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Authorities suspect the Zetas gang, which was blamed last year in the kidnapping and killing of 72 migrants from Central and South America in the same area of Mexico after trying to force them to work for the group.

Mexican authorities have not spelled out any motive for the bus attacks on a highway that leads to the U.S. border, 90 miles to the north. The region is traversed by thousands of Mexican and Central American migrants seeking work in the U.S.

Migrants crossing Mexico are often targets of robbery or attempts to extort money from loved ones in the U.S. or back home.

Though authorities have yet to identify many of the bodies, they believe many of the dead are Mexican.

From the Guardian:

The first bodies in the latest mass grave were discovered last week, after reports armed groups were pulling young male passengers off buses passing through the municipality of San Fernando.

Drug violence has killed more than 34,000 people since the president, Felipe Calderón, launched a military-led crackdown on the cartels in December 2006.

The latest discovery challenges the government's insistence that the majority of the killings are the result of inter-cartel conflict. It also underlines how ineffective the federal presence in Tamaulipas has been at stopping the carnage.

Many of the bodies have been taken to Matamoros where they await identificaiton from the city's overwhelmed forensic team.



 

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