Due to the subpar work of the Mexico City Attorney General’s Office forensic team in the area bordering Tláhuac and Chalco, three searching mothers had to re-excavate the site, where they found skeletal remains in material that had been discarded by official experts, according to members of the collectives “Hasta Encontrarlos” and “Una Luz en el Camino.”
The forensic search is taking place on the shores of Lakes La Habana and Xico, an area west of Mexico City that is disputed by two organized crime groups and where “bodies are often found floating,” says a neighbor speaking anonymously. According to official records, more than 6,200 people are reported missing in the country’s capital, 186 of whom are believed to be from this district.
The Mexican government has dismissed the work of the Committee on Forced Disappearance (CED), which sought to bring the country’s case—where the number of victims exceeds 132,000—before the United Nations General Assembly. According to the federal government, the CED “has not taken into account the progress made in this area”; however, this forensic operation in Tláhuac is marked by blatant negligence and official indifference.
The search began on April 7 and has been extended indefinitely because, in eight days of work, more than 800 skeletal remains have been found, which could belong to at least three people. On April 15, at the start of the day’s work, Rosa Icela Guzmán, from the Hasta Encontrarlos CDMX collective, spotted a human bone with the naked eye among the soil already examined by official forensic experts.
The groups have denounced that, from the outset of this investigation, the Prosecutor’s Office has sought to impose an unacceptable narrative by suggesting that the skeletal remains might have a “pre-Hispanic or anthropological origin,” without any scientific evidence whatsoever and based solely on a visual examination of the findings.
According to anthropologist and Doctor of Natural Sciences Mirsha Quinto Sánchez, who collaborates with various groups and is accompanying this process, “it is to be expected that in forensic work some elements may not be recorded, but this is preventable by assigning more staff. There are various techniques to determine the age of the remains and how many people they might belong to, such as making an estimate based on the weight and number of long bones found, but all of this requires meticulous laboratory work.”
This area, spanning at least four square kilometers, became a site of interest in August 2025, when human remains were found still clothed—a forensic clue of great significance. Since then, efforts have been made to analyze the crime scene and identify potential locations for further discoveries.
The work involves sifting all the soil extracted from the surrounding area through a very fine mesh. The forensic experts are in a hurry, but the mothers are not. Almost grain by grain, they examine the soil with loving care and discretion.
Only staff from the Mexico City Attorney General’s Office have participated in this search, but there have been no seatbelts, no transportation for the families, and no provision of food or water. After 3 p.m., the families themselves went in search of soft drinks and disposable cups, without any support from any institution.
“For us, even the smallest bone—a finger bone or a molar—is a glimmer of hope,” says Icela Guzmán, who has been searching for her son, Luis Ángel López Guzmán, since September 26, 2018, when he was forcibly taken from his home. “We are here out of necessity, not by choice. You’re doing a poor job, but we’re going to stay here out of love,” she says firmly to one of the forensic experts as she hands over the skeletal remains they found during the day, including precisely a molar and a finger bone, which the forensic expert receives with surprise and without being able to utter a word.
“They won’t be able to hide behind each other to cover up the 132,000 missing people in this country or how poorly they did their jobs,” Jaquelin Palmeros of the collective Una Luz en el Camino confronts the forensic experts, who are shielding one another as they bag the recovered remains.
The threat of rain is looming, and we have to rush to take a group photo. This time, only three mothers have made it all possible—just them against official negligence.
A small plover nests just a few meters from the excavation site; every so often it flutters away and flees, but returns to keep its nest warm. “That’s who we are—we care for life in the midst of death,” says Palmeros, watching the scene, and then turns her gaze back to her work.
Original post and photos by Gerardo Magallón published by Desinformémonos on April 16th, 2026.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.