Mexico: 5 of 116 bodies exhumed from mass graves

By Nancy Caouette

MEXICO CITY

Mexican forensic experts continued to exhume 116 corpses from two mass graves in a cemetery for a second straight day.

At least five bodies have been unearthed under the eyes of dozens of relatives of victims of forced disappearances.

Families hope the remains of their loved ones will be soon identified.

“There is no order in the way they disposed of the corpses. It is impossible to take out a body without making a deep analysis of the grave. The bodies are stacked,” Tranquilina Hernandez, the mother of a young woman who disappeared told the El Universal newspaper Tuesday.

The secret rural graves, discovered last November in the town of Tetelcingo in the central state of Morelos, was allegedly dug illegally by workers in the office of the state prosecutor.

State prosecutor Javier Perez Duron said an investigation is under way into who was responsible for the mass burial and that the exhumations would take at least one week.

"It is important to count the bodies and give them a dignified burial," he told the press Monday.

Officials will try to match DNA samples in an attempt to identify the victims.

Experts from Autonomous University in Morelos have been asked to help with DNA testing and representatives from the National Human Rights Commission are observing the process.

On Tuesday, agents from the office of the prosecutor of the state of Morelos arrived late to the site and delayed the start of the work, which annoyed relatives of the victims.

“[Those graves] are abhorrent, appalling acts that emphasize the well-shared suspicion that the state is colluded with organized crime,” said Javier Sicilia, a Mexican intellectual and activist who led a large campaign of awareness about forced disappearances in Mexico after his son vanished in 2011.

In an interview with Aristigui Noticias, a local news website, Sicilia urged citizens to fight the state of Morelos in order to get the exhumations completed.

According to official figures, more than 27,600 victims are missing across Mexico.

At least 10,000 have been victims of kidnapping since President Enrique Pena Nieto took office in late 2012.