- Title: MEXICO: Police find mass grave in abandoned silver mine
- Date: 1st June 2010
- Summary: TAXCO, GUERRERO, MEXICO (MAY 31, 2010) (REUTERS) GENERAL VIEW OF HACIENDA SAN FRANCISCO DE CUADRA MINE DIRT ROAD LEADING TO MINE POLICE VEHICLE GUARDING MINE ENTRANCE POLICEMEN LOOKING ON VARIOUS OF MINE'S VENT MINE'S INTERIOR SEEN FROM VENT MINE'S VENT SOLDIERS WALKING TOWARDS MINE HOLE IN VENT USED TO THROW BODIES INSIDE MINE POLICEMEN TAKING NOTES AT MINE VARIOUS OF MINE'S VENT POLICEMEN GUARDING MINE VARIOUS OF MINE ENTRANCE PANORAMIC VIEW OF TAXCO MORGUE ENTRANCE VARIOUS OF POLICEMAN WEARING SURGICAL MASK GUARDING MORGUE ENTRANCE MAN WALKING PAST MORGUE SHIELDING HIS NOSE FROM UNPLEASANT SMELL VARIOUS OF MINE'S VENT VARIOUS OF GUERRERO STATE CIVIL PROTECTION DIRECTOR, CARLOS ALBERTO AMEZCUA, BESIDE HIS VEHICLE AT MINE (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) GUERRERO STATE CIVIL PROTECTION DIRECTOR, CARLOS ALBERTO AMEZCUA, SAYING: "I don't know where the initial figure came from, but I can tell you what the attorney general's office declared in their news release, that six bodies and four skulls have been recovered." AMEZCUA TALKING TO POLICEMEN AND REPORTERS (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) GUERRERO STATE CIVIL PROTECTION DIRECTOR, CARLOS ALBERTO AMEZCUA, SAYING: "They are 150 metres and the extraction has been a bit slow. We have to implement the use of a pulley for extraction and the problem is, as I had mentioned, to collect the skeletons and pull them up in a small basket. We have to be very careful not to mix or try to mix each one of the bodies or skeletons." AMEZCUA LEAVING MINE IN VEHICLE GENERAL VIEW OF MINE
- Embargoed: 16th June 2010 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Mexico
- Country: Mexico
- Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
- Reuters ID: LVA94Y7O3I0KQ77JFXW89R1GFI47
- Story Text: Police said on Monday (May 31) up to 25 bodies of suspected drug gang victims, were found in an abandoned silver mine near the colonial city of Taxco, popular with tourists, in the state of Guerrero, Mexico.
The decomposed bodies, which had been thrown down a 500 foot (150 metre) deep ventilation shaft, were found after police were tipped off.
Mexican media reported that some of the bodies were found with their hands and feet bound.
Drug violence is raging across Mexico and almost 23,000 people have been killed in the fight among cartels and with Mexican security forces since President Felipe Calderon launched his army-led crackdown on drug gangs in 2006.
Guerrero state civil protection director, Carlos Alberto Amezcua, said the final number of corpses found had not been confirmed.
"I don't know where the initial figure came from, but I can tell you what the attorney general's office declared in their news release, that six bodies and four skulls have been recovered."
Amezcua added the bodies were being pulled up with the help of a pulley.
"They are 150 metres and the extraction has been a bit slow. We have to implement the use of a pulley for extraction and the problem is, as I had mentioned, to collect the skeletons and pull them up in a small basket. We have to be very careful not to mix or try to mix each one of the bodies or skeletons."
The December killing of drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva, the biggest strike yet in Calderon's war, has sparked fighting around the Mexican capital as factions within the Beltran Leyva cartel push for leadership.
The battleground includes the marijuana- and opium-producing state of Guerrero and the famous beach resort of Acapulco, a key transit point for South American cocaine.
In Cuernavaca, the colonial tourist town - outside Mexico City and close to Taxco - where Beltran Leyva was killed by marines, violence has surged in recent weeks with bodies hung from bridges and piled up on the side of roads.
Traffickers also want control of Mexico City for its big local drug market and the capital's highway links northward to the U.S. border. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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