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Mexican troops say they have discovered 72 bodies at a ranch in the north of the country. The bodies were found after a shoot-out with suspected drug cartel gunmen in which three gunmen and one marine were killed, the military said. Found near San Fernando in Tamaulipas state, the corpses are reportedly those of 58 men and 14 women. More than 28,000 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico over the last four years. The BBC’s Julian Miglierini is following the story from Mexico City. (Photo: Lorne Matalon) Download MP3
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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. Mexican officials today are investigating a shocking discovery in the north of the country. 72 bodies were found, dumped on the grounds of a remote ranch in the northern border state of Tamaulipas. The discovery followed a shootout at the ranch between Mexican marines and suspected drug-cartel gunmen. One marine was killed, along with three of the gunmen. The BBC’s Julian Miglierini is following the story from Mexico City. Julian, what do we know so far about these 72 bodies found at the ranch? Who were these people and how did they die?
JULIAN MIGLIERINI: The statement from the Mexican navy that first announced the discovery did not make any specific comments about the origins of the bodies. How they had been killed and when they had been killed. What Mexican media reporting is that they could be a group of migrants who had been kidnapped by one of the organized crime groups and they refused to give into the extortion that they were submitted to. This would not be the first time that such an incident happened, but not on the scale of this incident.
WERMAN: And if the victims are migrants, does that eliminate any involvement by drug gangs and drug lords.
MIGLIERINI: It doesn’t necessarily mean that this is not related to Mexico’s long running drug conflict. Some of these organizations, like the Zetas for example, are known not to only be dedicated to the smuggling of drugs, but also to human trafficking and also by using kidnapping and extortion as one of their methods. So it is all related in a way. Two of Mexico’s biggest challenges which are migrations and drug trafficking combine themselves in this deadly way sometimes.
WERMAN: And an interesting wrinkle in today’s narrative, the Mexican marines came across the ranch where these bodies were found almost by accident. What happened?
MIGLIERINI: According to that statement from the Mexican navy, a young person who had sustained a bullet would approached a military checkpoint near the town of San Fernando in Tamaulipas and pointed the security forces in the direction of a ranch where he said he had been injured. When they approached, they came under fire from these alleged criminals that were hiding inside that ranch. And a shootout ensued during which one security officer and three of these alleged criminals were killed. And that is when eventually they were able to search this ranch, they discovered several weapons and they made this gruesome discovery of 72 bodies, 14 of them belonging to women and 58 of them to men.
WERMAN: How is this news playing in Mexico? I mean this is the largest mass grave site yet found in Mexico’s four-year war with the drug lords.
MIGLIERINI: The Mexican media obviously have become quite used to covering this type of news. This is not the first time that Tamaulipas makes headline. This [INDISCERNIBLE] all this in Mexico which is said to be being fought over by these organized crime groups. Only less than two months ago, a gubernatorial candidate, a person who was running for governor in the elections in early July, was killed and gunned down after an ambush in Tamaulipas because he had made fighting crime one of his campaign promises, as the government put it. So, states like Tamaulipas or Chihuahua or [INDISCERNIBLE] or other states among Mexico are states that are getting more and more used to having this kind of news and gruesome discoveries in their territory.
WERMAN: Hard to imagine getting used to that. I mean many say there’s a war going on south of our border almost as nasty as the war in Afghanistan. What’s the perception among Mexicans? Do they say Mexico is at war?
MIGLIERINI: They do. I mean it was actually the government who started first using that expression, the drugs war. Now, they’ve refrained from [INDISCERNIBLE] and speak about it as a struggle for public security. And there is a concern here in Mexico that despite the fact that this violence is quite confined to some specific areas, and Mexico City is an area that has so far been spared from much of this violence, the concern is that these confined areas as becoming more frequent in other places.
WERMAN: The BBC’s Julian Miglierini in Mexico City. Thank you very much Julian.
MIGLIERINI: Thank you.
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