88 bodies now recovered in mass graves in northern Mexico

[News_Editor]

88 bodies now recovered in mass graves in northern Mexico

2011-04-12 04:02:53 GMT+7 (ICT)

TAMAULIPAS, MEXICO (BNO NEWS) -- Mexican authorities on Monday confirmed that another 16 bodies were found in mass graves in Mexico's northern state of Tamaulipas.

The National Defense Secretary said in a news release that the new discovery brings to 88 the number of bodies that have been found since last Wednesday in the San Fernando municipality. So far 14 mass graves have been located.

The 16 bodies were found after Armando César Morales Uscanga, who was arrested on Saturday, provided information for the location of the new graves. Morales admitted his participation in the killing and illegal burial of 43 bodies.

The Attorney General's office said that the Mexican army on Sunday arrested Erik Rubén Zetina Hernández, who is presumably linked to the crime cell which is allegedly responsible for the killings. So far at least 16 people have been detained in connection with the mass graves.

Last week, local authorities said they found the graves while investigating reports that passengers from a bus were kidnapped in late March. It is believed that they were people who refused to enlist within the ranks of Los Zetas drug cartel, yet forensic investigators have not confirmed if the bodies are the missing passengers or immigrants.

Members of Los Zetas cartel killed 72 Central and South American immigrants in August last year in the same municipality.

"These reprehensible acts underline the cowardice and the total lack of scruples of the criminal organizations, which generate violence in our country, particularly in the state of Tamaulipas," Mexico's President Felipe Calderón said last week after the discovery.

Since President Calderón was elected in 2006, over 30,000 people have died in connection to drug-related violence.

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