MEXICO CITY - Mexican prosecutors said
on Friday they were investigating the discovery of 19 plastic
bags containing human remains in Jalisco, a western state that
has been battered by surging levels of gang violence.
The attorney general's office of Jalisco said forensic
experts were working to establish whether the bags contained
complete bodies and whether the victims had been reported
missing.
Authorities found the bags on Thursday in a wastewater river
in the municipality of Ixtlahuacan de los Membrillos, some 41 km
(25 miles) south of the state capital, Guadalajara.
Search efforts were suspended on Thursday night for security
reasons and resumed on Friday morning, an official at the
attorney general's office said, speaking on condition of
anonymity.
Jalisco has in recent years been ravaged by the Jalisco New
Generation Cartel, one of the most powerful drug gangs in
Mexico.
Fighting between gangs helped push the number of murders to
record levels in Mexico last year, and violence has remained
high in the first few months of the presidency of Andres Manuel
Lopez Obrador.