Demonstrators took to the streets across Mexico on Saturday, demanding justice after a gruesome discovery of charred human remains, shoes, and clothing at what is believed to be a drug cartel training site.
Protests were held in Jalisco, where the remains were found, as well as in major cities including Mexico City, Tijuana, Veracruz, and San Luis Potosí, according to AFP and local reports.
The bodies were discovered on March 5 by families searching for some of Mexico’s more than 100,000 missing persons. The Guerreros Buscadores, a group dedicated to locating the disappeared, described the site as an “extermination centre” containing “clandestine crematoriums”—a chilling reminder of the country’s cartel-related violence.
In Mexico City, protesters lit candles and arranged rows of shoes in honor of the missing. Aurora Corona, 58, whose son disappeared in March last year in Nuevo León, said she joined the protest to demand action.
“I came to speak out for my son and all the disappeared,” she said tearfully. “Hopefully, now they’ll listen when they see the horrors of the country we live in.”
Since October 2023, search groups have uncovered at least six other secret cremation sites in Jalisco, while hundreds of mass graves have been found across Mexico.
The UN Human Rights Office called the latest discovery “deeply disturbing,” highlighting that authorities had raided the same site in September 2024 but failed to detect crucial evidence.
Juan Carlos Perez, a 22-year-old student attending the protest, admitted that his initial reaction to the news was indifferent, given how common such discoveries have become.
“But then I started following the story and realised—it could have been me, my dad, my mom,” he said.
For nearly two decades, Mexico has struggled with criminal violence, with security forces and the justice system overwhelmed by cartel activity. Families of the missing hope this latest discovery will finally push authorities to act.
