Authorities bury 67 unidentified bodies in Mexico’s Ciudad Juárez

Mexican authorities from the border city of Ciudad Juárez buried 67 corpses on Friday at the San Rafael cemetery, representatives of the Institute of Forensic Sciences (SEMEFO) said.

Héctor Manuel Jacob, coordinator of the Institute’s northern zone, said the Mexican Attorney General’s Office authorized the mass burial after the deceased, most of them homicide victims, had not been identified or claimed for long periods of time. According to Jacob, the bodies belonged to 13 women and 54 men and all of them were buried in individual graves and wooden coffins, with sufficient information for families to locate them. The coordinator did not rule out that many of these bodies were migrants who died at the border. “They could be migrants from neighboring countries or internal migrants from other states; we never rule out these hypotheses,” the researcher explained.

Currently, the search for missing migrant women is common, with families investigating if they might be in this border city. The burial took place in an isolated part of the San Rafael cemetery, about 5 kilometers south of the urban area of Ciudad Juárez. More actions Jacob said another burial with a similar number of bodies should take place in the coming days, once the prosecutor’s office has given its approval. He explained that the burial process ensures that all the data is available to determine if the bodies are those the families are looking for.

Samples will be taken from the family for genetic comparison with bodies already buried or still in custody if necessary, he added. “By protocol, we have to take samples from all the bodies to obtain a genetic profile,” he said. In 2023, Ciudad Juárez was the tenth most violent city in the world, with a homicide rate of 77.4 murders per 100,000 inhabitants and a total of 1,163 murders committed in that year. These actions occur amidst the forensic crisis in the country, as government estimates indicate that the remains of over 50,000 people have been recovered but remain unidentified. EFE mc/dgp/ics