Mexico finds 13 more bodies, 2 new mass graves

Updated 12m ago |

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican investigators have uncovered 13 more bodies in mass graves in the violent northern state of Tamaulipas, where 59 dead were exhumed earlier this week, officials said Friday.

Seventy-two bodies have now been discovered since authorities began chasing reports that gunmen had kidnapped people off of passenger buses running to towns near the U.S. border.

Nine of the bodies were discovered in one newly found grave and four in another on Thursday in the area around the city of San Fernando, state Interior Secretary Morelos Canseco said Friday. The total now matches the number of migrants who died in a massacre near that town last August.

Canseco said investigators are searching for more graves in the area.

Federal authorities said Thursday they have detained 14 people in connection with the crimes.

State authorities said they started receiving reports in late March that gunmen were pulling men off buses on the stretch of road that runs through the municipality of San Fernando.

Relatives of people who have gone missing have begun showing up at a morgue in border city of Matamoros across from Brownsville, Texas, looking for loved ones — some not seen for a couple of weeks, others a few months, some as long as three years.

Authorities are still not sure about the origin of the victims found in the pits, but suspect at least some had been abducted from buses.
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