Farmers in Mexico have discovered two clandestine graves containing the remains of at least 23 people, from which authorities have exhumed 19 full skeletons and four without heads.
The unmarked mass burial sites, located 100 meters apart, were found in the community of Pantanal, within the state of Nayarit on the Pacific coast, state officials report. It is feared more such sites may exist nearby, authorities told El Pais.
After making the grisly discovery, the farmers contacted United Families, a local non-governmental organization which helps relatives locate their missing loved ones.
In the state of Nayarit alone, 306 bodies have been found buried in unmarked graves since United Families was formed in 2017 in response to a surge in local homicides.
Nayarit is a battleground between the Sinaloa and Jalisco narco-trafficking empires, two of Mexico's most expansive organized-crime syndicates. Crime committed by Mexican cartels has risen exponentially over the past decade as perpetrators continue to enjoy the prevailing culture of impunity.
In 2016, 98.5 percent of crimes committed – a total of more than seven million cases – went unpunished: the highest rate of impunity in Latin America, according to the Center for Studies on Impunity and Justice and the University of the Americas, Puebla.
The Nayarit discovery comes as nine bodies were found in a truck in the state of Veracruz, on Mexico's east coast.
The report "Violence and Terror: Findings on Clandestine Graves in Mexico," published June 2017 by Mexico's Ibero-American University, concludes that in recent years 1,000 unmarked graves have been discovered nationwide, containing at least 2,014 skulls.
Mexico registered 23,101 killings between January and November 2017 alone, making it the country's most violent year on record in 20 years.