Mexican police find 45 bags of human remains in ravine

Police in Mexico have uncovered a mass grave containing 45 bags of human remains.

Authorities have not yet been able to discern exactly how many bodies are there, and are still working on the site to exhume the bodies. Police in Jalisco, Mexico made the horrific discovery while searching for seven call centre workers who had gone missing.

Jalisco State Prosecutor's Office

Tragically, disappearances are a common occurrence in Mexico, with government figures suggesting that more than 100,000 people are currently missing in the country.

Not only that, but relatives of missing persons have claimed that officials are indifferent when they report loved ones missing.

Seven workers at a call centre went missing, and during the search, authorities in the western state of Jalisco received a tip off about the mass grave in an inaccessible location in Mirador del Bosque ravine. Following a search they found the bags, which contained body parts.

The first bag was found three days ago on Tuesday 30 May, with the search continuing into Wednesday. It will carry on until all human remains have been recovered from the site, a spokesperson for the prosecutor for Jalisco said.

Now, authorities are working with helicopter crews to recover the remains and determine the number of dead bodies at the site, as well as who they were. It is not yet clear if the seven people reported missing are among them, and the search to locate them is still underway.

Jalisco State Prosecutor's Office

In 2007, then Mexican President Felipe Calderón, launched a 'war on drugs'. The number of disappearances has spiked since then, with 75% of missing persons being male, and one in five being under the age of 18 at the time of their disappearance.

The ongoing problem has been called a 'human tragedy of enormous proportions' by the UN.

Jalisco is at the centre of a confrontation between two rival cartels. These are the Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG), and the Nueva Plaza that split from their rivals, the CJNG, in 2017.

Tragically, this is not the first such mass grave to have been uncovered in Mexico. In an essay entitled The Country of Mass Graves, Mexican journalist, Marcela Turati, recalled a similar incident in 2010.

Investigators found 55 bodies hidden in the disused La Concha mine in Taxco Guerrero, some 150 metres down. They were in various stages of decomposition, and many bore the signs of organised crime, including their hands being tied behind their backs, as well as signs of torture.

Occasions such as this sometimes see the relatives of missing people gathering to see if their loved one is among those found. Many people cling to hope when their loved ones go missing, while others just want to be able to give them a proper burial.