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(CNN) – Mexican authorities have announced the discovery of at least 113 bodies from a mass grave in the state of Jalisco.
Of the total, 30 bodies have been identified by family members, state attorney Gerardo Octavio Solís said at a news conference Sunday. 28 men and two women were identified, he said.
The mass grave is located in the municipality of El Salto, southeast of the state capital, Guadalajara, in central Mexico.
A spokesperson for the state attorney’s office told CNN that excavation began on October 1 and excavation work is continuing.
Another mass grave is being excavated in Ixtlahuacán de los Membrillos, about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) south of El Salto by road, where 25 more bodies have been found.
Solís did not offer an explanation for the existence of the mass graves, but the state of Jalisco has seen an increase in violence in recent years.
It is the base of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, one of the “most powerful and fastest growing” drug cartels in Mexico, according to the US Drug Control Administration.
Jalisco has also exhumed the largest number of mass grave bodies from 2006 to September 30, 2020 of all the states of Mexico, according to a report by the National Search Commission published in October.
There were 897 bodies exhumed in the state during that period, out of a total of 6,900 in the country.
Last month, a grim discovery was made in neighboring Guanajuato state, where the remains of 59 bodies were unearthed, Reuters reported.
The clandestine graves were found in the municipality of Salvatierra, which has seen homicide rates rise as rival drug trafficking organizations fight for control of the area, Reuters said.
And in March 2017, a mass grave containing more than 250 human skulls was discovered in the state of Veracruz, in central Mexico.
The mass grave found in the state of Veracruz could be the largest in Mexico, state attorney general Jorge Winckler told CNN affiliate Televisa at the time.
This story was first published on CNN.com ‘Mexican authorities discover 113 bodies in mass grave’
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