Authorities found the remains of at least 38 people in a series of pits and scattered on the ground at a suspected drug-gang dumping site near the industrial hub of Monterrey in northern Mexico, an official said on Friday.
Investigators were using heavy equipment to search for more bodies at the rural site outside Mexico’s third-largest city, local media said. Photographs showed charred spots on the soil suggesting some bodies may have been partially burned.
Nuevo Leon state attorney general Alejandro Garza y Garza said officials still had to inspect three more pits for bodies. He said 36 of the victims found so far are men and two are women.
The state attorney general’s office in Nuevo Leon state, where Monterrey is located, said more heavy equipment was being brought in to search the ground and pits where the remains were found.
The bodies were too badly decomposed for immediate identification, the office said.
The clandestine grave site, which was discovered on Thursday, was believed to have been used by drug gangs that operate in the area.
The Mexican army did not offer any immediate information on how the site was detected.
Nearly 25,000 people have been killed in Mexico since the government launched an offensive against drug cartels in late 2006.
Cartel hit men have been known to use mass dumping sites to dispose of their victims. In late May, police in the central Mexican town of Taxco discovered 55 bodies in an abandoned silver mine.
Mexico’s Defense Department said in a statement on Friday that soldiers had seized 26kg of explosives from gunmen killed in two clashes with soldiers in the remote mountains of the border state of Chihuahua.
State authorities first reported the shootout between troops and assailants on Thursday saying eight gunmen had been killed near the rural town of Madera, about 230km south of the US border but gave no other details.
The Defense Department said nine gunmen were killed in two clashes and that troops had also seized army uniforms, seven satellite phones, two ATVs and ten cars.
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