Mexican bodies in pits tally rises to 116

Marisela moral for the Attorney General of Mexico attends a press conference in Mexico City on Tuesday. Henry Romero/Reuters.

Mexican researchers have found a total of 116 bodies in pits near the American border, 28 more that previously reported, Attorney General Marisela Morales said Tuesday.

Morales said a total of 17 suspects linked to the Zetas brutal drug gang were detained for murder in the North of the State of Tamaulipas, which some have allegedly confessed having kidnapped the passengers of the bus and kill.

Interior Secretary Francisco Blake Mora pledged to intensify the presence of the troops and federal police, in the region where the killings occurred and not leave the area until the killers and drug gang there have been captured.

"Organized crime in his desperate attempt, resorts to commit atrocities that we cannot and should not tolerate that a Government and as a society," said Blake.

The tombs were found earlier this month in the township of San Fernando, the same area of Tamaulipas, where researchers have discovered the bodies of 72 migrants massacred by armed men of alleged drug cartel last August. Most of 72 migrants were from Central America, who frequently travel through the area to reach a United States.

Police say witnesses in the last case of murder said that armed men fired the victims, mostly young men, off the coast of the bus passengers travelling through the area of San Fernando at the end of March. The authorities accuse the abductions on the Zetas, the same group accused drug gang in the massacres of migrants.

The motive for the abduction of bus is uncertain, although prosecutors have suggested that the gang may have been forcibly recruiting people to work for it.

San Fernando is a town approximately 145 kilometres south of Brownsville, Texas, on a stretch frequented Road off the coast of the Gulf. This is an area patrolled regularly by the Mexican army.

The Zetas and rival Gulf Cartel are fighting in Tamaulipas on the lucrative drug transit routes to the United States.

The authorities are working to identify the bodies, which may belong to an American citizen, DNA samples and other techniques.

One of the bodies is a Guatemalan man, said the Government of this Central American country.

The victim was identified as Feliciano Tagual Ovalle, 44, the Guatemalan Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement late Monday. The statement did not say if the man was a migrant or a resident of the Mexico. He said that the Guatemalan Government planned to make to the host organization.

Mexican authorities confirmed one of the victims was Guatemalan and said another was a man of the Centre of the Mexico. Mexican prosecutors had said earlier most of the bodies were citizens likely Mexican.

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