9/23/2018 – New York Times
MEXICO CITY — Tiny pants for a baby no older than 6 months and shiny pink sandals for a toddler are among the personal items that have turned up at mass graves in the Gulf state of Veracruz, driving home the brutality of rising violence in Mexico.
Mexican authorities have found remains of children along with adults in the clandestine burial pits, a person with knowledge of the investigation confirmed Sunday. Each item of clothing was either found near a body or cut free from remains. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the details publicly.
The National Commission of Missing Persons posted online hundreds of pictures of clothing Friday to give family members a tool to possibly identify missing loved ones. The images include polo shirts with logos still intact, socks, shoes, colorful boxer briefs and ladies’ panties. One T-shirt says “Live Free” above a picture of a young woman and flowers.
Photos also show multiple children’s items, such as little sweaters or T-shirts with images of Tinkerbell, Tweety Bird and Pokémon.
Mexican troops and police committed two extrajudicial killings while confronting presumed fuel thieves in the central state of Puebla in May 2017, a Mexican human rights group said on Wednesday, adding to allegations of abuse against the military.
Mexican authorities said on Wednesday they had fired the top prosecutor in Jalisco state, the second official to lose his job after the discovery of a container truck holding the bodies of hundreds of victims of the country’s drug war.
The governor of the western Mexico state of Jalisco has fired the director of the state morgue after a refrigerated truck carrying 157 unidentified bodies drew complaints from neighbors over the smell.
Authorities in western Mexico swamped by mounting murders from the country’s drug war have resorted to storing dozens of corpses in a refrigerated container truck that in recent days has been parked in several towns, angering residents.