A little over a year after the discovery of a 42-hectare property in the community of Agua de la Virgen, in the municipality of Ixtlahuacán, Colima, the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) confirmed the existence of an undetermined number of clandestine graves and at least 42 human remains at the site.
According to a report submitted to groups searching for missing persons in the state, most of the bodies found showed signs of having been burned. The victims were mostly women between the ages of 25 and 39.
“Following the discoveries this year on a property in the municipality of Teocaltiche, Jalisco, linked to cases of missing persons, search groups from this entity requested the Federal Government to share the information obtained on a property located in the community of Agua de la Virgen, in the municipality of Ixtlahuacán, also related to missing persons,” reported the Colima Attorney General’s Office.
The property was seized solely by federal authorities between December 2023 and February 2024, following the opening of an investigation related to the disappearance of lawyer Ricardo Arturo Lagunes Gasca and community leader Antonio Díaz Valencia, last seen on January 15, 2023, in Cerro de Ortega, Tecomán municipality.
Incineration of Bodies
According to testimony gathered by the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Disappearances, smoke and activity related to the incineration of bodies were still visible when authorities entered the property.
As part of the identification process, the Colima Prosecutor’s Office submitted 888 forensic profiles to the Attorney General’s Office (FGR). So far, three individuals have been identified, whose disappearances originated in the states of Michoacán and Guanajuato.
The property in Agua de la Virgen is one of the largest sites seized by the Attorney General’s Office in Colima in recent years. Authorities have not reported whether there will be further investigations at the site, nor have they detailed the progress of the main investigation that led to the discovery.
The families of missing persons in the region remain hopeful that the profiles obtained from clandestine graves will provide valuable information in finding their loved ones. However, the forensic process could take several months due to the complexity of genetic analysis and the shortage of trained personnel.
Since 2019, Colima has been the scene of multiple discoveries of clandestine graves, most of them in the municipality of Tecomán.
The first of these cases occurred in Santa Rosa, where the remains of 84 people were found. Years later, in 2023, 55 graves containing 92 bodies were discovered in the town of Cerro de Ortega—also in Tecomán—according to official figures.
Source: infobae
