sign and flowers from a recent march against violence
The Milenio newspaper’s independent count of drug war-related deaths finds 1,402 victims were reported in the month of April. That makes last month the deadliest since the start of the four and a half year-old military offensive against organized crime.
Nearly a quarter of April’s documented deaths were found in mass graves. The largest discoveries were in the states of Tamaulipas and Durango, where dozens of mass graves have yielded some 300 victims…and those deaths may only be the tip of the iceberg.
News of the mass graves prompted families of missing persons to come forward en masse. The Mexican attorney general’s office now acknowledges the number of people who have disappeared since 2007 may number more than 6 thousand.
The steadily rising death toll has also sparked a national movement critical of both the president’s militarization strategy and the targeting of civilians by organized crime networks. The “No More Blood” movement plans to carry out a series of actions this upcoming weekend, including a four-day march on foot from Cuernavaca to Mexico City.