In Mexico, more than 250 skulls found in secret mass grave

Activists have long suspected that a wooded area in Mexico's Veracruz state, Colinas de Santa Fe, was used as a clandestine cemetery, and after finding evidence of burial pits, they notified the authorities. With just a third of the official excavation complete, more than 250 skulls have been unearthed, and more are expected to be found.

"Veracruz is an enormous mass grave," state attorney general Jorge Winckler Ortiz said. "It is the biggest mass grave in Mexico and perhaps one of the biggest in the world." The Zetas drug cartel dominates Veracruz, but they have been fighting the Jalisco New Generation cartel since 2011, and desperate people whose relatives have gone missing in the drug war are searching on their own for their loved ones. The attorney general said on the Televisa network that "for years, organized crime has disappeared and murdered people with the complicity of the authorities," and he "cannot imagine how many more people are illegally buried there," adding that there are 2,400 people still missing.

He also said that the authorities deceived people who came to them asking for information on relatives they believed might be in the mass grave. In October, the state's former governor, Javier Duarte, resigned, and not long afterward a warrant was issued for his arrest on charges of racketeering and money laundering. He is now on the run.

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