An “extermination” site where human remains and ovens have been found is being probed by police in Mexico, leaving families searching for missing loved ones bracing for the worst.
Mexican officials flocked to the Izaguirre Ranch in the western state of Jalisco last week after volunteers flagged the findings at the site, operated by the New Generation Jalisco Cartel.
Past the estate’s iron gates, officials found cremation ovens, bone fragments, hundreds of pairs of shoes, clothing, and even children’s toys, raising fears that the cartel group might have carried out mass killings at the ranch.
Officials have found around 700 personal items at the site, but it remains unclear how many bodies were cremated there.
Police said they have found nearly 100 shell casings so far.
“The number of the victims that presumably could have been buried there is enormous,” Eduardo Guerrero, a security analyst in Mexico City, told The New York Times. “And it resurfaced the nightmarish reminder that Mexico is plagued with mass graves.”
A group of volunteers found a site with human remains that was believed to have been used by one of the area’s cartels. AFP via Getty Images
Cremation ovens, bone fragments, hundreds of pairs of shoes, clothing and children’s toys were found. AFP via Getty Images
A woman records the clothes and shoes found at the Izaguirre Ranch where three human crematoriums were located on March 5. AFP via Getty ImagesRelatives of the some 120,000 “forcibly disappeared” people in Mexico are now fearing the remains found may have belonged to their loved ones, with some allegedly seeing their loved one’s possessions in the haunting photos of the Jalisco site.
“They’d see the shoes and say: ‘those look like the ones my missing relative was wearing when they disappeared,’” Luz Toscano, one of the volunteers, told BBC News.
The Izaguirre Ranch, located in Teuchitlan, lies about 37 miles west of Guadalajara and was allegedly being used as a training base for the cartel.
10 arrests were made, two hostages were released, and a body was found wrapped in plastic. AP
“They’d see the shoes and say: ‘those look like the ones my missing relative was wearing when they disappeared,’” Luz Toscano, one of the volunteers, told BBC News. APThe Mexican National Guard was tipped off on the situation last September, leading to a raid that resulted in the arrest of 10 people.
During the raid, police found and released two hostages, as well as the body of a victim wrapped in plastic bags.
The officers who raided the site last year allegedly failed to find evidence of the additional remains and cremation ovens because they had been hidden in underground rooms, according to the Jalisco Attorney General’s Office.
People place pairs of shoes and light candles during the vigil ‘Luto Nacional Tehuchitlan’ for those who lost their lives in the ‘Izaguirre Ranch’ in Guadalajara on March 15. AFP via Getty ImagesHuman rights groups, however, have claimed the officers couldn’t miss the clues at what they called a “mega-extermination camp,” claiming local authorities tried to cover it up.
Mexico’s Attorney General, Alejandro Gertz Manero, echoed the possibility of a cover-up, saying it was just not credible “ that a situation of this nature would not have been known to the local authorities of that municipality and the state.”
Jalisco state Gov. Pablo Lemus said his office was fully cooperating with federal investigators, telling critics that his administration was not “washing their hands” of the case, according to the BBC.
With Post wires
