MEXICO CITY (Portal) – Mexican authorities in the violence-plagued southwestern state of Guerrero said they were investigating a gruesome massacre that took place in a part of a remote desert where two rival criminal groups were fighting for control.
Police investigators found five burned bodies piled on a burned vehicle when they arrived in Buenavista de los Hurtado on Friday, the attorney general said in a statement released late Saturday.
Local media, citing footage shared by suspected members of the Familia Michoacana on social media and interviews with unnamed sources in the area, reported that 30 people died after a drone strike.
In the footage taken in the desert, heavily armed men in military fatigues could be seen piling bodies – some naked, their clothes strewn on the ground – on the hood and back of a red pickup truck riddled with bullet holes.
Some men appeared to have had their limbs cut off and at least one was missing a head.
A severed head can be seen being placed on top of the pile of people by one man, while another, holding the camera and filming the pickup from all sides, says in heavy Mexican profanities: “Send more.”
Since its release on Friday evening, the video has racked up 3.1 million views on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Portal was unable to independently verify the video, but several local media outlets later published widely circulated videos appearing to show the same pick-up and bodies being burned.
Mexican authorities said in the statement they were aware of a “confrontation between the criminal groups Familia Michoacana and Los Tlacos, which have an ongoing dispute over control of the territory.”
Police investigators in the area found no evidence of other crimes, the statement said. The villagers refused to provide DNA samples that would enable identification of the remains and further investigations.
Portal was unable to obtain comment from the villagers.
(Reporting by Stefanie Eschenbacher; Editing by Bill Berkrot)