Category Archives: Murder

Mass graves — some with hundreds of bodies — have come to light in recent years amid bloody turf wars between drug cartels.

A mass grave with the bodies of 14 people has been uncovered in a mountainous region of the northern Mexican state of Zacatecas, state prosecutors said.

Zacatecas Attorney General Francisco Murillo said authorities have so far found the bodies of 11 men and three women, but there could be more at the site in the municipality of Valparaiso.

“In some cases, the bodies are dismembered, some are bound and others are recent,” he said at a news conference late Friday.

Federal and state security forces have been pursuing a criminal gang in the area where the mass grave was found.

Forensic experts were still working the scene in search of other bodies.

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The staff of the weekly newspaper Riodoce normally meets on Wednesdays to review its plans for coverage of the most recent mayhem wrought in Sinaloa state by organized crime, corrupt officials and ceaseless drug wars. But on this day, in the shadow of their own tragedy, they’ve come together to talk about security.

It’s important to change their routines, they are told. Be more careful with social media. Don’t leave colleagues alone in the office at night. Two senior journalists discuss what feels safer: to take their children with them to the office, which was the target of a grenade attack in 2009, or to leave them at home.

Security experts have written three words on a blackboard at the front of the room: adversaries, neutrals, allies. They ask the reporters to suggest names for each column — no proof is needed, perceptions and gut feelings are enough

Allies are crucial. In an emergency, they would need a friend, a lawyer, an activist to call.

The longest list, by far, is enemies. There are drug traffickers, politicians, businesspeople, journalists suspected of being on the payroll of the government or the cartels, a catalog of villains who make the job of covering Mexico’s chaos perilous.

There is no respite from the violence, and as bodies pile up across the country, more and more of them are journalists: at least 25 since President Enrique Pena Nieto took office in December 2012, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, with at least seven dead in seven states so far this year. A total of 589 have been placed under federal protection after attacks and threats.

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In the first five months of 2017 there were 9916 murders throughout the country, an increase of around 30 percent compared to the 7638 killed in the same period last year. In 2011, the bloodiest year of the war on drugs, the figure for the same period between January and May was 9466.

The country recently recorded its highest number of murders in a month for the last 20 years.

They found the bodies of the Martinez children in bloody soil, curled up next to their parents in a leased hut. Officials believe the six member family was massacred by Los Zetas, because they suspected that the father of the family had played a role in an attack by a rival gang in which a member of Los Zetas died.

The event leaves on the table the strategy without warning of the drug cartels, who are experiencing splits and wars for control of territory in much of Mexico. The country recorded its highest number of murders in a month in at least 20 years.

The violence has even surpassed the darkest days of the war on drugs launched by predecessors. “It has acquired the proportions of the circle of hell that could appear in “Dante’s version of Hell”,said Mike Vigil, former director of International Operations for the US Drug Enforcement Agency and author of the book “Deal”.

“His strategy was to only go for the capo, El Chapo, of course that is not the way to do it , you know, because of the “Hydra Effect”, you cut off a head and three more appear. “There are weak institutions, weak rule of law, weak justice, huge corruption, especially in the municipal and state police forces, all contributing to growing violence.

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