Authorities find 12 bodies in secret graves in northern Mexico human rights news

Skeletal remains found in the Mexican border state of Chihuahua have been taken to a laboratory for possible identification, officials say.

Authorities in Mexico have recovered 12 bodies from secret graves in the northern border state of Chihuahua.

Authorities found skeletal remains in 11 graves in Ascension, about 180 km (110 miles) west of Ciudad Juarez, near the United States border, the state prosecutor’s office said in a statement Thursday.

Investigators began searching the desolate site on December 18 and in the following days, they expanded the search area.

Ultimately they found 11 separate shallow pits into which a dozen bodies had been dumped.

The remains were taken to state forensic laboratories for possible identification and, if possible, to determine the cause of death.

Chihuahua has been affected for years by violence linked to drug trafficking and organized crime as a route for smuggling migrants into the US.

According to official figures, 3,927 people have gone missing in the state since 1952.

Across Mexico, some 120,000 people are considered missing amid years of violence and instability.

Relatives of most of those missing are largely left to search for their loved ones, and they often form volunteer search groups that go into the desert in search of secret graves.

It was not known whether any of those volunteer groups helped authorities locate the graves in Ascension.