Hardly an eyebrow was raised this week after a clandestine gravesite containing 16 bodies – 14 men and two women – was discovered in the Agua Escondida neighborhood of Tonala, on the outskirts of the Guadalajara metropolitan area.
As soon as the news broke, family members of disappeared people turned up at the site but were not allowed to look at any of the bodies for identification purposes.
The discovery of mass graves containing mostly the bodies of victims of Mexico’s bloody drug war has become a commonplace occurrence. Xavier Orendáin, president of the Guadalajara Chamber of Commerce, said the Tonala discovery was another “reminder” of the dark times the country is experiencing but warned society not to “normalize” these kinds of incidents nor start to believe that “we must get accustomed to such violence as part of our way of life.”