The Economist: Tracing the Missing Victims of Mexico's Drug War The Economist
go to original June 19, 2014

For almost three years residents of Allende, close to the Mexican border with Texas, harbored a dreadful secret. In 2011 the town of 27,000 people suffered a violent attack by the Zetas, Mexico’s most brutal drug gang. Driven by a thirst for vengeance against two local men whom the gangs believed had betrayed them, mobs of Zetas drove into town, rounded up their extended families and friends - totaling hundreds of people - and abducted them at gunpoint. They then drove bulldozers through their houses, and mortared or set fire to them.

Until this year the barbarity went virtually unreported; there were only dark rumors of what had happened to those who had gone missing. Even though dozens of the gutted houses are dotted like war ruins around the town center, talk of the incident was suppressed - from fear of, or collusion with, the Zetas. Reynaldo Tapia, who took over as mayor of Allende in January, says two hapless youths who took visitors on a walking tour of the devastated homes were shot dead.

But in February, almost three years after the crimes were committed, federal and state investigators acted at last. On farms near Allende, they found oil drums - known to the Zetas as “kitchens” - where the victims were incinerated after being shot. Reports of the number of bodies found in clandestine burial grounds around the area range from 300-500.

Federal forensic police in Mexico City are still studying the charred remains to determine exactly how many were killed. Mr Tapia says he thinks 30-40 families from Allende, some with as many as ten members, were “exterminated”. He has compiled a list of 34 destroyed houses in the town that he plans soon to demolish, because they are a morbid reminder of a “nightmarish” past. The list includes the names of homeowners whom Mr Tapia can remember going to church with. A few managed to flee to the United States. The rest have never been heard of again.

Read the rest at The Economist

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