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At least 45 bags with human body parts were found in a ravine in the western Mexican state of Jalisco during a search for seven young people reported missing last week.
"Forty-five bags with human remains have been extracted that belong to both male and female people," the state prosecutor's office said in a statement on Thursday.
The gruesome discovery was made on Tuesday at the bottom of a 40-meter (120-foot) ravine in the municipality of Zapopan, a suburb of Guadalajara, a large industrial hub, reports AFP.
The authorities had launched a search for two women and five men, all aged around 30 years, who had been reported missing since May 20.
The missing persons reports for each one had been made separately on different days, but investigators found that they all worked at the same call center.
The call center was in the same area as where the human remains were discovered.
Forensic experts have yet to determine the number of victims and their identities.
In recent years, in different areas of Jalisco, human remains have been found in bags or in unmarked makeshift graves.
In 2021, in the municipality of Tonala, in Jalisco, some 70 bags with the human remains of 11 people were found.
And in 2019, the bodies of 29 people were found in 119 bags in an unpopulated area of Zapopan.
Another case that sparked numerous protests in Jalisco was the disappearance, in March 2018, of three film students, whose remains were dissolved in acid.
In 2018, media reported that three Italians disappeared, allegedly handed over by police to the Jalisco New Generation cartel, to whom they had allegedly sold faulty machinery.
Bd-pratidin English/Golam Rosul
