For a map, click here. For a map of Durango state, click here To read Rantburg reports ion the Durango mass graves, click here and follow the links
By Chris Covert
Ten more dead bodies have been discovered in Durango municipality, Durango, according to Mexican news accounts.
According to Durango Fiscalia General del Estado, Sonia Yadira Fragoso de la Garza, further exhumations were in the village of Cristobal Colon in Durango municipality after ten were discovered last December, 2011. The total discovered in that area is 60.
The Durango mass graves most of which are concentrated in Durango municipality, are the worst mass graves in Mexico. Discovery of the bodies began in April of 2011, and have since risen to 290 until last December, 2011. The new discoveries raises that toll to 300 dead.
Proceso has reports the total exhumation is 322, going by official counts.
Yadira Fragoso is quoted saying no other graves are expected to be found.
To read the Rantburg report on the December, 2011 grave discovery, click here
A similar mass grave find was made in Tamaulipas last summer, where authorities found graves with 193 individuals who were killed during a terror campaign by a Los Zetas armed group operating out of San Fernando municipality in Tamaulipas. Between July, 2010 and when those graves were found in April, 2011 the San Fernando Los Zetas group hijacked buses and abused passengers, reportedly as part of a recruiting drive.
The original discovery in Durango was made from an apparent interrogation of a detainee, who led authorities to the first of four grave sites in Durango municipality. Graves have been found as far away as the La Laguna region in far eastern Durango near the border with Coahuila state.
Many of the dead were not shot, but had been killed by various means. Some of the dead were killed as long ago as 2005, well before the late 2006 start of Mexican president Felipe Calderon's war on the drug cartels.
According to previous news reports of the 300 dead found to date only 37 have been claimed by relatives.