Dog Leads Searchers to Mass Grave in Mexico

A dog carrying a human hand has led to the exhumation of a mass grave in Mexico, where searchers have uncovered 53 bags of human remains.

According to The Daily Star, Bibian Mendoza followed the dog during an international arts festival to the mass grave in Irapuato, Guanajuato, Mexico. The uncovering is believed to have stemmed from a years-long war between the Jalisco cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel.

"While people from all over the world were celebrating the Cervantino festival (an international arts festival in the area), we were digging up bodies, and at the same time I thought it was useless because they were burying more people elsewhere," Mendoza, the founder of a women's collective searching for missing persons, said.

Both the festival and the grim discovery took place in October. The remains have been exhumed and analyzed. But it is not known how many of the bodies have been identified.

As the Star says, while citing unnamed officials, "most of the issues ... in Mexico, are focused around cartels — are actually drug-related."

Security expert David Saucedo says the city is part of the "fentanyl and cocaine routes."

Mendoza adds that while many politicians have promised to make the area safer, "seeing bodies lying in the streets with messages is something new for us."

"I hate hearing the [state] governor say that he is going to deliver a safer Guanajuato," she added. "I hate hearing the president [Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador] say that what is happening is not his fault."

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