How the discovery of a mass grave sparked uproar over the missing in Mexico

Al Jazeera

27-03-2025

Mexico City, Mexico – When they got to the deserted ranch, the volunteer searchers found watches and dirty football jerseys, an applied psychology book and a copy of the Bible. There was even a heart-shaped keychain containing a cut-out photo of a young woman.
But one set of artefacts was particularly chilling: the sight of hundreds of dust-caked shoes, thought to be discarded by victims who were murdered and incinerated in nearby ovens.
The volunteers had uncovered what appeared to be a mass killing site, with suspected ties to the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), a fearsome criminal organisation in Mexico.
It was located in Teuchitlán, Jalisco, less than an hour outside the urban centre of Guadalajara — and at a site previously inspected by local authorities.
The discovery on March 5 has sent public anger rippling across Mexico, as the country grapples with a crisis of mass disappearances at the hands of criminal groups and government officials.
On a Saturday afternoon this month, indignant protesters placed 400 pairs of shoes in Mexico City's Zócalo plaza, right in front of the National Palace.
One of the demonstrators — who shared only his first name, Juan Carlos — told Al Jazeera that the sheer size of the mass grave is part of the outrage. For him, it represents years of negligence.
"It's not good that this violence we're living through is normalised," Juan Carlos said. "The government has colluded with criminal organisations."
Solemn, their faces swollen with tears, some of the protesters had come to the Zócalo because they too had lost loved ones to forced disappearances.
In the mass grave at Teuchitlán, they saw an echo of their own suffering. They called on the government to act decisively and root out the corruption that has allowed so many deaths to unfold for so long.
"We're going through the same problems," another protester, Gustavo Sánchez, told Al Jazeera. "There haven't been advances on anything."
Sánchez's son, Abraham Zeidy Hernández, disappeared in the state of Nuevo León in May 2024. He gave a tearful speech at the rally accusing President Claudia Sheinbaum of failing to address the crisis.
"We want to know where they are," Sánchez said of the disappeared.