Fifty-six bodies were found in mass graves in northern Mexico, near the US border, the prosecutor’s office in charge of the investigation announced today.

The bodies were found in the state of Chihuahua and exhumed in the past few days, with the help of the military, the local prosecutor’s office said, without specifying the identity of the victims. Criminal organizations involved in the trafficking of drugs, weapons and immigrants operate in this region of Mexico.

Authorities have so far found corpses, entire skeletons, individual bones, shell casings and clothing. The remains were sent to the coroner’s office to determine how and when these people died.

The prosecutor’s office pledged to provide legal protection to the victims’ families.

The graves were located in a site called “El Willi” controlled by the criminal organization La Linea, “one of the armed offshoots” of the Ciudad Juarez cartel, according to La Jornada newspaper.

Chihuahua has been plagued for years by violence linked to organized crime, as it lies on a drug and migrant trafficking route to the US. On December 26, at least 12 bodies were found in multiple graves about two hours from the border city of Ciudad Juarez. In this State until December 2024 there were 3,927 missing people, much less compared to other States where the cartels operate, such as Jalisco (west) and Tamaulipas (north) where the missing are more than 13,000.

In May 2022, Mexico reached the tragic number of more than 100,000 missing, based on official figures, the UN announced.