Mexico: More Drug Violence Victims Found in Durango, Morelos

December 20, 2011 By Staff

Today in Latin America

Top Story — Mexican prosecutors announced on Monday the discovery of another mass grave containing the remains of 10 people on the outskirts of the Mexican city of Durango. The clandestine grave is the fourteenth discovered this year in the state of Durango, where a reported 287 people have reportedly been murdered this year in drug-related violence. Few of the bodies have been identified, and relatives of the victims are afraid to come forward to claim the remains of their loved ones. Police in Durango suspect that the dead were victims of an internal power struggle within the Sinaloa drug cartel, but they did not offer any motive for the killings. Also on Monday, authorities in the state of Morelos reported the discovery of two mutilated bodies in a town plaza and basketball court in the town of Pueblo Viejo, where a sixteen year-old boy was also found shot.

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Headlines from the Western Hemisphere

North America

A U.S. Coast Guard spokesman said Monday that they were investigating a spill in the Gulf of Mexico at an oil rig operated by Shell.
U.S. Homeland Security agents will screen inmates in Maricopa, Arizona county jails for immigraiton status after the department determined that county law enforcement officers have no authority to do so.
A U.S. federal judge said that he would decide by the end of 2011 whether or not to block South Carolina’s new immigration law.
The Mayor of Mexico City announced Monday that operations at one of the world’s largest trash dumps will cease by December 31 in order to begin reusing the garbage and using its methane gas for energy.

Caribbean

Cuban flags will be flown at half-staff for three days to mourn the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
An opposition human rights organization in Cuba said that the number of political detentions in the country have risen to 388 in December.
The Florida-based Globe International Ministries is facing a lawsuit for the alleged sexual abuse of children at a Haitian orphanage.

Central America

A former Salvadoran military commander accused of the murders of six Jesuit priests, a woman and her daughter in 1989 stopped short of a plea agreement for charges of lying on his U.S. immigration forms.
Honduran authorities discovered the burned wreckage of a plane they said they suspected of being used in drug smuggling.
Federal agents in Hawaii captured a Costa Rican man wanted for raping a 3 year-old child in Costa Rica in 2001.

Andes

FARC guerrillas reportedly blew up a rail line just 9 miles from the Cerrejon coal mine, the largest open-pit coal mine in the world, destroying 250 meters of track and derailing a coal train.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez called U.S. President Barack Obama a “clown” on Monday after Obama criticized Chávez’s relationships with Cuba and Iran in an interview.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa will meet Tuesday in Quito to discuss a resolution to a dispute between truckers in the two countries.
American Lori Berenson, on parole in Peru for her involvement with the Tupac Amaru guerrillas, was given permission to leave the country on Monday after she was barred from a flight to the U.S. on Friday.

Southern Cone

Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo is under pressure from the Senate to block the incorporation of Venezuela as a full Mercosur member or resign from the trade bloc as it met in Montevideo on Monday.
The environment secretary of Rio de Janeiro state said that an oil leak from a Japanese-operated rig could cause major environmental damages as it hits the beaches of tourist destination Angra dos Reis.
Brazilian authorities have noticed a rise in the consumption of synthetic drugs as well-off “narco-turistas” smuggle drugs between Brazil and Europe on pretend vacations.
The conjoined twin in Chile who survived a surgery separating her from her sister last week is showing signs of recovery.

Image: Pepe Rivera @ Flickr.

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