Almost 50 bodies dumped in Mexico port city in two days

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Almost 50 bodies dumped in Mexico port city in two days

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Forty nine bodies were dumped on roads in Mexico's eastern port city of Veracruz within two days.

24 September,2011 08:54 am

The bodies were dumped on roads in Veracruz within two days this week, coinciding with a conference of top prosecutors nearby, officials said.The macabre displays brought violence to new levels in the state of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico, in an apparent escalation of drug gang turf wars in the area.Fourteen bodies were strewn around the city Thursday, two days after 35 corpses were left in broad daylight under a busy bypass, despite the deployment of extra security for the prosecutors’ meeting.Police on Thursday found four bodies in the city center, three in the north of the metropolitan area and seven, covered in plastic bags, on two junctions in the west.The 35 bodies found Tuesday had been mostly strangled or suffocated, according to authorities, and lay spilling out of two trucks in the metropolitan area of Boca del Rio, near a hotel where justice officials from Mexicos 31 states and the capital were meeting.Local media said a message lying near those bodies carried threats to the Zetas, a violent drug gang set up by ex-elite soldiers which is fighting for control of drug and people trafficking routes in the area.A top interior ministry official said the killings were likely a revenge attack between criminal gangs.The Veracruz state prosecutor Reynaldo Escobar quickly alleged that the first 35 victims, including a police officer and two minors, had been criminals linked to kidnappings, murders or drug trafficking, after releasing contradictory statements about how many had been identified.There were suspicions that some of the victims were not linked to organized crime and that has to be investigated, said Miguel Concha, from the Fray Francisco de Vitoria center for human rights.The mother of one of those killed told journalists outside the morgue that police had detained her teenage son a week earlier.More than 35,000 people have died in an escalation of suspected drug violence since the government of President Felipe Calderon began a crackdown on organized crime in 2006, according to official figures. Media counts put the figure above 40,000, including security forces and innocent bystanders.Veracruz city and state have suffered an increasing number of shootouts and attacks, including the killing of three journalists, in recent months.At least 32 prisoners escaped from three of the states prisons on Monday, 14 of whom were recaptured, according to the authorities.