Amnesty International Points to Mexico Mass Grave as Sign of Crisis

MEXICO CITY – This week’s discovery in northern Mexico of a mass grave holding more than 30,000 human bone fragments is evidence of a “rapidly deteriorating human rights crisis” in the Aztec nation, Amnesty International said Thursday.

The fragments, found at a ranch in Nuevo Leon state where drug traffickers allegedly burned the bodies of victims, belong to at least 31 people reported missing, state Attorney General’s Office spokeswoman Pricila Rivas told EFE.

“Mexico is miserably losing the battle against disappearances, with nearly 25,000 people going missing since 2007,” Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International, said in a statement.

“This latest discovery must be a wake-up call for authorities in Mexico to take real action to stop what seems to be an endless list of horrors taking place across the country,” she said.

The bones were unearthed on a ranch in the municipality of Salinas Victoria, about 26 kilometers (16 miles) north of Monterrey, the capital of Nuevo Leon. The town is under the control of the notoriously violent Los Zetas drug cartel.

“As a first step, Mexican authorities must ensure that, unlike too many times in the past, forensic investigations into this shocking discovery are conducted in a way that protects all evidence and leads to the identification of the remains and to justice for the relatives of the victims,” Guevara-Rosas said.

About 1,100 people have gone missing in Nuevo Leon since 2007, according to official figures, while non-governmental organizations say 1,600 people have disappeared in the border state since that year.

The majority of the victims have disappeared at the hands of the criminal organizations that operate in the state.

Monterrey has been plagued by drug-related violence in recent years, with the worst incident occurring on Aug. 25, 2011, when Zetas cartel members set fire to a casino in the industrial city, killing 52 people.