A organization representing families of the missing stated on Thursday that over fifty bodies of unidentified individuals have been buried in mass graves or are with forensic services in Mexico, which is experiencing violence. The "Movement for the Missing in Mexico" warned that the country is facing a "deep crisis in forensics" regarding the identification of human remains.
The organization clarified in its report that sixty percent of the unidentified corpses, totaling 52 thousand, are placed in mass graves in public cemeteries, indicating that it obtained these figures from requests for public information from forensic agencies. It added that the remainder are in forensic facilities, universities, or sites that the government has not confirmed or is unwilling to acknowledge.
The report stated that the figures "reveal the impact of increased violence over the past 15 years on society, particularly concerning enforced disappearances and homicides." It mentioned that the shortage of staff, inadequate training, low wages, and temporary contracts are some of the reasons for the problems within forensic services.
The organization explained that the government has agreed to establish a new mechanism for identity recognition, which will be revealed in the coming days. In October 2019, the National Human Rights Commission reported that there were over thirty thousand unidentified corpses in Mexican morgues that have not been claimed.
Since 2006, when the army began the battle against drug trafficking, more than 300 thousand murders have been recorded in the Latin American country, with the majority attributed to criminal gangs. Government figures indicate that the number of missing persons across the country is approximately 82 thousand and 500.
