Anonymous reports led women searching for missing persons to abandoned houses in the Chulavista neighborhood, in the municipality of Tlajomulco de Zúñiga, Jalisco. With shovels, picks and rods, this weekend they searched the indicated addresses and found bags with human remains under four of them.
“They don’t want us to find them.” That was the conclusion of a searching mother, since the remains located had been buried in the front of the houses or in the backyards and a concrete plate had been placed on top.
Some remains located were two meters deep, but the differences in color in the concrete or the thickness of the ground in the same space, the lack of tile in some parts or lime stains were indications that pointed to where there could be a pit.
The findings were made between Friday, April 1 and Sunday, April 3, as part of the second field search brigade in Jalisco. The search engines —family members and volunteers— were coordinated by the collectives Madres Buscadoras de Sonora, Jóvenes Buscadores de Sonora and Jóvenes Buscadores de Jalisco, of recent creation.
So far, the Prosecutor’s Office Specialized in Missing Persons of Jalisco has not disclosed how many victims correspond to the remains located. The data will be made public until the Jalisco Institute of Forensic Sciences finishes reviewing what was found.
The first brigade was deployed in February, when 30 skeletal remains were located in nine houses and three open fields. Those remains belong to 28 victims, the prosecution confirmed.
Read more: Remains found by searching mothers in Jalisco correspond to 28 victims, reports Prosecutor’s Office
20 bags with remains in a restored house
One of the sites reported is located in section 10 of the Chulavista neighborhood, in front of a park and a soccer field where children usually go to play. It is a restored house, which is part of the recovery plan of abandoned houses of the municipality.
“It was very well painted and even looked like it was inhabited, so the authorities said there was nothing there; in the end, the mothers insisted and it opened up like what the garden was and the bags were found, they were one after the other,” said one of the volunteers.
Cecilia Flores, leader of the collective Madres Buscadoras de Sonora, reported that there were about 20 bags with signs of human remains.
Siboney Flowers
Remains two meters deep
The searchers also broke the concrete in the courtyards of two houses separated by half a block, in section 3 of the colony. In both cases, they located bags after digging up to two meters deep.
“We realized that there was a lot of loose land; So, we proceeded to dig, but since it was very deep, we did ask for the support of the backhoe. Once he entered and removed more debris and earth, at a depth of approximately two meters, that is when signs come out that there is something,” said Kris Muñoz, one of the leaders of Young Seekers of Jalisco, about the discovery in the first house.
At the second home, the search engines opened the backyard three times without finding any indication, but insisted that the anonymous complaint had been clear and pressured the authority to help them dig. Finally, clues were found thanks to the search dogs Borrego and Zeus, who are part of a squad of the prosecution.
Remains in housing that had already been searched
The last discovery of the day occurred in a house in section 9 of the same colony. This house had already been searched by the state prosecutor’s office in February, during the first brigade. Authorities said it had been searched without results, but the mothers located a grave in the garage of the house.
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