By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-03-19 20:56:43 | Updated at 2025-03-20 15:29:53
18 hours ago
Mexico’s top prosecutor said on Wednesday there had been flaws in the investigation of a ranch in the western state of Jalisco, which activists have called a cartel-run “extermination camp,” and vowed to uncover the truth of what happened there.
Earlier this month, a group of activists searching for missing loved ones found ashes, thousands of bone fragments, items of clothing, and alleged underground ovens possibly used to cremate bodies at the ranch in Teuchitlan, about 40 miles (64km) outside Guadalajara, the Jalisco state capital.
The discovery of the “ranch of horror”, as some local media have dubbed it, has shocked the nation which has for years struggled with disappearances of people.
More than 124,000 people are missing in Mexico, according to government data, largely as a result of drug cartel violence. Most cases are never solved, breeding a deep mistrust of authorities among those searching for the missing.
Mexico’s attorney general, Alejandro Gertz Manero, said at a press conference that Jalisco state authorities were aware of the ranch as early as September, but had not tested human remains at the site or properly identified the clothing and shoes found there. The state authorities also had not alerted federal officials, he said.
The discovery of mass graves is not uncommon in Mexico, but the possibility that the ranch was a systematic extermination camp has caused a deep sense of horror.
