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By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
A Mexican Army unit of the 7th Military Zone discovered a mass grave site in eastern Nuevo Leon state Friday evening, according to Mexican news sources.
An article posted on the website of Milenio news daily reported five narcofosas, or deep pits containing full skeletons discovered at around noon Friday. At least five full sets of charred human remains have been exhumed. Reports say more are expected. Organized crime groups in the area have used remote sites such as the one near China for years to discard their victims.
One report by Excelsior news daily speculated that some partial remains were also found at the site saying some of those remains could be those of the 49 butchered individuals found last Sunday in Cadereyta, Nuevo Leon.
However, an Agency France-Prese Spanish language wire story posted on the Internet at midnight Saturday quoted an unidentified source with the Nuevo Leon attorney general's office saying the remains found were at least a year and more old, and ruled out the possibility those remains were of some of the victims found last Sunday in Cadereyta. Those officials characterized the number of dead found as "indeterminate."
The find was about 10 kilometers along a road to Mendez, Tamaulipas, which is southeast of China. China itself is 40 kilometers east of Monterrey and 30 kilometers east of Cadereyta, where the 49 unidentified individuals were found last Sunday.
The day before the discovery of the China mass graves, a Mexican Army unit detained eight unidentified individuals said to be members of a local Gulf Cartel group operating in the area. News releases by the Secretaria de Defensa Nacional (SEDENA), the controlling agency for the Mexican Army, hinted the eight detainees may have had involvement in the 49 dead found in Cadereyta.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com