OUTRAGED RELATIVES OF MISSING PEOPLE DEMAND TO SEE EVIDENCE FOUND IN ‘RANCH OF HORROR’ – ‘Extermination Camp’ shocked Mexico, a country numbed by nearly two decades of bloody cartel violence.
Families of missing people were granted access to what local media has dubbed the “ranch of horror,” an alleged cartel killing site and training camp in Teuchitlan, a rural area about 40 miles (64 km) outside Jalisco’s capital, Guadalajara, in western Mexico, on Thursday (March 20).
It was there that an activist search group for the disappeared found earlier this month what they called an “extermination camp” littered with bone fragments, ashes, alleged makeshift crematoriums, along with hundreds of shoes, backpacks and other belongings.
Families complained, saying the ranch had been ‘cleaned up’ by authorities before their arrival and that they had not been allowed to get near any of the buildings inside the ranch.
It is the first time that family members of missing people, as well as journalists, were allowed official access to the site, accompanied by authorities from both the state and federal attorney generals’ offices. Visitors were only allowed to walk within a limited footpath marked by yellow tape.
The case has shocked Mexico, a country numbed by nearly two decades of bloody cartel violence. While the discovery of mass graves is not uncommon here, the possibility this ranch was a site of systematic killing has caused a deep sense of horror.
The powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel, widely thought to have operated the ranch, has taken aim at the search groups that found and publicized the site, claiming in a social media video that they had distorted the facts to create a “horror movie” with the aim of damaging the cartel’s image.
Families had come from all over the country to visit the ranch, hoping to find any trace of their missing loved ones.
