On Tuesday, May 30, the Searching Mothers of Jalisco group found several half-buried bodies at a property in Tlajomulco, a town south of Guadalajara. They notified the authorities and went there. It was late and they had no security. When they returned two weeks later, they found three surprises: no authority had arrived there, the bodies were still buried as before, and there was a new grave, much larger than the first. That was Tuesday, and they called the authorities again. On that occasion, they actually went to the area and started processing the bodies. The public prosecutor’s office did not provide any information on this, but the search engines assure that 32 bodies have already been recovered between the first grave and the second, the youngest. And that there is more, they assure, there are many more.
The Searching Mothers of Jalisco group dedicates Tuesday of each week to exploring properties and forests in search of dead bodies beneath the dry earth where no one but criminals and themselves tread. Two weeks ago on Tuesday, 12 mothers turned up in a remote area around Tlajomulco, an hour south of Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco. An informant had contacted them days earlier to provide a spot where bodies were buried. Anonymous calls from criminals and their acquaintances lead to the search for the missing persons in a state overwhelmed by the inaction of the authorities and the impunity of organized crime.
The mothers arrived there on Tuesday, May 30, alone and without police escort, and found three bodies half-buried in the undergrowth at a property in San Isidro Mazatepec, a Tlajomulco municipality. Indira, a mother seeker and the group’s coordinator, was present when they called the authorities to inform them of the meeting. “We were in the middle of nowhere, we had no security and it was getting dark. “We called the authorities, they told us they would come as soon as possible and we pulled out,” the activist said on the phone.
Members of the Jalisco Searching Mothers group speak with elements of the prosecutor’s office in Tlajomulco on June 14. ULISES RUIZ (AFP)
Weeks passed and nobody had the opportunity to check the work of the authorities. Oftentimes, the vehicle transporting them to the areas they are searching is unavailable and all they can do is wait. Until finally this Tuesday, June 13, they returned to the property, an inhospitable, arid place that appears to have been recently ravaged by fire. What they find there deeply discourages them: the bodies found are still buried and there is no trace of the authorities. They were about to leave when Compañera noticed part of the ground very close to the first pit. After so many years of searching for their loved ones buried underground, mothers have become experts at spotting changes in the ground they walk on.
In this case it was clear something had happened there and it was a recent change. “When the earth is disturbed, it’s very easy to spot, it’s a different color, and in this case the ground was very different,” says the seeker. A colleague pulled out an elongated stick, stuck it in the area of recently removed soft earth, and it began to emanate a foul odor well recognized by activists: the smell of bodies in a state of decomposition. It was almost unnecessary to use this mechanism because moments later another member of the group sank her foot until it touched a black bag that was barely buried.
Forensic work around the graves, on June 14, 2023. ULISES RUIZ (AFP)
This second grave, which contains the majority of the bodies unearthed, according to the researchers 27 bodies (compared to five in the first), was dug in the two-week period that the authorities knew of the site but didn’t know, they went there . The second time, the mothers called and personnel from the National Guard, the District Attorney’s Office and the Forensic Institute arrived at the property. Five days have passed since they arrived in the area and started their work, but they still have not issued a statement on the incident. Jalisco’s Strategic Security Coordinator General said: “There is a prosecutorial escort, the bodies are being processed by the forensic institute and we are waiting to complete the process to provide the information.”
The government has not linked the two events, but as of Wednesday it has been conducting an operation in Tlajomulco that has resulted in police demolishing three safe shelters. A kidnapped person was rescued in one of them, and handcrafted drugs and firearms were found there. Security forces have arrested eleven people. Jalisco, the land of the Toltecs, Luis Barragán and Guillermo del Toro, celebrates the 200th anniversary of its founding this Friday, albeit amid a sordid environment, institutional silence and organized crime rising by the day. In the state with the highest number of disappearances in Mexico (nearly 15,000 since records began), authorities seem overwhelmed.
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