Eight bodies were discovered in recent days in a national park near the tourist city of Acapulco, Mexico, a non-governmental organization announced Friday.
“Eight bodies were lowered from the mountain,” Socorro Gil, president of Memory, Truth and Justice, said during a press conference in Acapulco.
The bodies were discovered between Monday and Thursday in El Veladero National Park, a vast nature reserve overlooking Acapulco Bay on Mexico’s Pacific coast.
The horrific discovery comes three weeks after the disappearance of seven people in Acapulco, kidnapped from a rehabilitation centre. However, authorities have not proven a link between the two events.
The state of Guerrero, of which Acapulco is the most populous city, is infested with criminal groups that are constantly fighting among themselves to expand their territory. According to authorities, 4,171 people are currently missing in the state.
Due to the lack of results in police investigations, families of missing persons often search for their loved ones themselves in the countryside, equipped with shovels and picks. Often, NGOs, using anonymous information, inform the authorities about the presence of mass graves.
