More than 100 bone fragments, some 30 teeth found in Acapulco
Relatives of missing persons participate in a demonstration at the Angel of Independence in Mexico City in June. File Photo by Tomas Perez/EPA
Aug. 27 (UPI) — More than 100 bone fragments and about 30 teeth were found in El Arenal, a rural community in the Mexican resort city of Acapulco.
The remains were discovered Wednesday at a suspected clandestine extermination site during a search conducted by members of a group named after Vicente Suástegui Muñoz, an activist who disappeared five years ago.
The discovery coincided with the observance of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, which seeks to draw attention to people whose whereabouts remain unknown and demand action to resolve disappearance cases, Infobae reported.
The search occurred in an area considered a priority by families searching for missing relatives because of reports and testimony linked to disappearances in different parts of the region.
Samantha Colón Morales, president of the search collective and Suástegui’s wife, said an anonymous caller alerted her to the presence of bone fragments in the eastern part of Acapulco, local newspaper El Sur reported.
Colón said the site where the remains were found is accessible by dirt roads and is about 40 minutes from the federal highway. Lipsticks, belt buckles and rings were also among the items recovered at the site, she said.
Colón said she believes the property may have been used as an extermination site because of the number of remains and the conditions in which they were found, Quadratín Guerrero reported.
She said that for families of the missing, each piece of evidence recovered could help advance an investigation and eventually establish the identity of a missing person.
Colón explained authorities will analyze the remains to determine how many people they belong to and seek to establish their identities.
More than 115,000 people are listed as missing in Mexico, according to the country’s National Registry of Missing and Disappeared Persons.
Mexico’s disappearance crisis is closely linked to organized crime violence, institutional complicity or inaction and high levels of impunity, which have overwhelmed the country’s forensic services.
Amid limited government resources, hundreds of search collectives have emerged across Mexico. Made up primarily of mothers and other relatives of missing people, their members often risk their lives searching clandestine graves and suspected extermination sites in an effort to find their loved ones.