Eight bodies found in resort city of Cancun
Authorities in Mexico continued to investigate Wednesday after the bodies of eight people were discovered near the resort city of Cancun.
Oscar Montes de Oca, the head prosecutor of the Caribbean coast state of Quintana Roo promised justice for all of those killed. He added that authorities are still searching for additional victims while they work to identify the remains they have already located.
The bodies were found over the weekend amid a concentrated effort to locate some of the 112,000 of people that have been reported missing across Mexico. Such searches have become commonplace nationwide in recent years and often involves crews scouring wooded areas as well as places like sinkholes and ponds known as cenotes. Such spots are often used as dumping grounds by drug cartels to dispose of the bodies of their victims.
The recent round of search efforts were unique given they took place in Cancun, the hub of Mexico’s tourism industry. All of the victims so far were located in a poor neighborhood about 10 miles from Cancun’s beach and hotel zone over the weekend.
Five of the bodies were found at a building site that had apparently been abandoned. Authorities believe they were dumped there between one week and two months ago. Three of them have been identified as people previously reported missing, but their names have not been released.
Search teams found the skeletal remains of three more people in a wooded area on the outskirts of Cancun. They have not yet been identified.
Similar searches were also carried out in Felipe Carrillo Puerto, a town south of Tulum.
The grisly discoveries come amid ongoing cartel and gang violence in Mexico. Earlier this month, four men in Cancun were killed in a dispute related to drug gang rivalries.
Officials with the U.S. State Department have since issued a travel advisory for the region. It warned travelers to “exercise increased caution,” especially after dark, at Mexico’s Caribbean beach resorts like Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Tulum, which have been plagued by drug gang violence in the past.
With News Wire Services
