THE Police in Mexico have found 45 bags containing human parts in the state of Jalisco during a search for eight people reported missing last week, local authorities have said.
The discovery was made at the bottom of a 40-meter ravine in the Zapopan, a suburb of Guadalajara, a business hub in the country’s west.
“Forty-five bags with human remains have been extracted that belong to both male and female people,” the state prosecutor’s office in Jalisco said in a statement on Thursday.
It was not immediately clear if the remains were those eight people missing.
The missing persons worked at a call centre, but the relations reported their disappearances to the police at different times.
Preliminary information by the police suggests that the body parts “match the physical characteristics” of the missing persons, but the police did not confirm the bodies were those who disappeared.
The missing persons comprise two women and six men, all in their 30s.
The Jalisco Institute of Forensic Sciences is working with families of the missing employees to determine if the remains are their missing relations.
The ICIR reports that Mexico is notorious for sudden disappearances of people, including its citizens and foreigners.
At least 100,000 Mexicans and migrants are still missing in the country, and the authorities fail to provide their whereabouts.
Two of the four Americans kidnapped in the country were found dead in March.
Citizens blame the government for lacking the capacity to stop the menace and provide adequate security for its people.
In 2022, a commission set up by the government blamed the police and the military for the disappearance of 43 students in the country in 2014.
The children were travelling through the southwestern city of Iguala when the military and police intercepted them.
Students who survived the arrest claimed their buses were shot. Dozens of the students have not been seen since.
The ICIR reports that Mexico’s homicide rate is among the highest in the world. The country also has some of the deadliest borders globally.
Mexico’s state of Tamaulipas hosts criminal gangs, including the Gulf Cartel, Sinaloa Cartel and North-East Cartel, who battle each other for the country’s border leading into the US.
Migrants use the Mexican Gulf, including Tamaulipas, as the shortest route into the US.
The ICIR reports that despite repeated promises by Mexican President Andres Lopex Obrador to contain the menace, Mexico has continued to record a high number of human disappearances and other heinous crimes.
Marcus bears the light, and he beams it everywhere. He's a good governance and decent society advocate. He's The ICIR Reporter of the Year 2022 and has been the organisation's News Editor since September 2023. Contact him via email @ mfatunmole@icirnigeria.org