Keywords: clandestine graves, micro-spaces of exception, enforced disappearance, discarded body, border. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Testimony of Barbarity: Clandestine Graves as Micro-Spaces of Exception in Northern Chihuahua, Mexico, 2008\u20132024<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n This article analyzes the phenomenon of clandestine graves in northern Chihuahua as an expression of extreme violence and forced disappearance in Mexico, exploring how these spaces function as necropolitical devices that articulate practices of extermination, silencing, and control over territory. The study involved a review of statistical data, national and local news sources, and semi-structured interviews with members of the Paso del Norte Human Rights Center (cdh<\/span> Paso del Norte). Findings indicate that more than half of the graves identified between 2008 and 2024 are located in the state\u2019s northern region, revealing a systematic pattern of violence, impunity, and institutional collapse. Clandestine graves contain not only bodies but also territorial markings that etch a lesson of terror into the landscape. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Keywords: Clandestine graves, micro-spaces of exception, enforced disappearance, discarded bodies, border. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The phenomenon of clandestine graves has revealed an expression of atrocious violence\u2014particularly against the bodies of missing persons\u2014in the context of large-scale crime and its collusion with Mexican state agents. In the specific context of northern Chihuahua, this issue represents one of the harshest and most silenced manifestations of the structural and atrocious violence plaguing the country. In this border region, historically marked by its strategic role in drug trafficking routes and binational trade, the proliferation of clandestine burial sites cannot be understood without acknowledging the persistent presence of macro-criminal actors\u2014cartels with networks of complicity involving government officials, as well as police and military personnel\u2014who are in close collusion with various branches of the Mexican state. Given the institutional inability to prevent, investigate, and punish these crimes, what we observe is a form of active complicity that allows the violence to continue and fosters Exceptional Micro-Spaces<\/em> (Gami\u00f1o, 2021). <\/p>\n\n\n\n The disappearance of persons, particularly enforced disappearances in this region of the country,1<\/a> has established itself as a central reference point for academic research. The way in which armed groups operate\u2014often with the tacit approval, protection, or even collaboration of police and military operations carried out as part of security strategies, such as the so-called \u201cwar on drugs\u201d\u2014,2<\/a> It has transformed vast territories into scenes of dispossession and extermination targeting the most vulnerable populations. Addressing specifically the phenomenon of clandestine graves\u2014many of which are linked to cases of people listed as victims of enforced disappearance\u2014means not only bringing to light the multiple layers of violence that define it but also denouncing the mechanisms of impunity that stand in the way of truth and justice. Clandestine graves are a mark of horror (Mart\u00ednez Mart\u00ednez, 2025). Analyzing them helps us understand how disappearance becomes territorialized in contexts where the line between legality and illegality is blurred, and where the State, far from guaranteeing rights, appears as an accomplice to acts or practices of impunity in the face of excessive violence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This text is part of the preliminary findings of a research project on enforced disappearances in the recent history of the state of Chihuahua, as well as the collective actions of families searching for their loved ones in defense of memory and justice. In particular, Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez and the Ju\u00e1rez Valley,3<\/a> as well as the municipalities of Ahumada,\u00a0Buenaventura, Ascensi\u00f3n, Casas Grandes, Nuevo Casas Grandes, and Janos, have faced a significant presence of groups linked to organized crime, leading to phenomena such as forced displacement, murders, enforced disappearances, kidnappings, and extortion. Our aim is to examine the relationship between the disappearance of people in the region and the increasing discovery of clandestine graves in this part of the state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The central question we seek to answer is the following: What impact does the discovery of clandestine graves\u2014as micro-spaces of exception\u2014have in northern Chihuahua during the period from 2008 to 2024? Rodolfo Gami\u00f1o (2021) refers to \u201cmicrospaces of exception\u201d as territories marked by forced disappearance that, although they appear invisible and embedded in everyday life, function as mechanisms of death and dispossession. These places, produced by state logics of exclusion and necropolitics, suspend the legal and social order by instilling fear and uncertainty in society. To explore this relationship, the required statistical data\u2014related to the number of clandestine graves discovered in these municipalities by the Chihuahua State Attorney General\u2019s Office\u2014was examined via a transparency portal. In addition, a review was conducted of local and national news articles covering the period from 2008 to 2024 that have tracked cases of clandestine graves in Chihuahua and their probable links to groups associated with organized crime in the region.4<\/a> As a third source of information, three semi-structured interviews were conducted with staff members of the Paso del Norte Human Rights Center, A.C. (cdh<\/span> Paso del Norte),5<\/a> which provide insight\u2014from the perspective of human rights experts and activists\u2014into the impact of the discovery of mass graves in various areas of the region and how they reveal the ways in which large-scale crime operates in the territory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Enforced disappearance not only physically eliminates a person but also turns them into an absent body, suspended between life and death, erased from the legal and symbolic order. In this sense, necropower not only kills but also erases, obscures, and dehumanizes an individual\u2019s condition. That is why forced disappearance is a mechanism that operates in territories marked by impunity and where atrocious death is orchestrated, in which certain bodies are treated as disposable and expendable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As noted by various authors such as Sayak Valencia (2010) and Ariadna Est\u00e9vez (2022), the concept of necropolitics formulated by Achille Mbembe (2011) constitutes a fundamental theoretical tool for understanding how contemporary power is exercised through the production and administration of death. Unlike the biopolitical forms described by Michel Foucault, which focus on the regulation of life, Mbembe places at the center of his analysis the way in which certain regimes of power determine who may live and who must die, and how some bodies are condemned to social, civil, or physical death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This approach is very useful for addressing the phenomenon of enforced disappearance, a practice that clearly embodies the logic of necropower. Disappearance is not only the denial of the right to life, but also the suspension of the subject\u2019s entire legal and human status, transforming them into an invisible, spectral body, outside the framework of mourning and justice. In this sense, forced disappearance is not merely a repressive technique, but a form of governance sustained by terror, impunity, and the suspension of recognition of the life of a person whose whereabouts and condition are unknown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the current context, necropower is not only exercised by the nation-state but also coordinated with criminal, economic, and military actors who use violence and dispossession as a means of territorial and social control. In Mexico, where enforced disappearance has become a systematic and widespread practice, the concept of necropolitics sheds light on the ways in which power not only kills but also erases, silences, and fragments communities. Thus, analyzing disappearance through the lens of necropolitics will allow us to identify how clandestine graves are both an expression of its atrocious logic and, at the same time, a key reference point for understanding current mechanisms of dehumanization and for constructing frameworks of memory, truth, and justice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In our case, based on a transparency request submitted to the Chihuahua State Attorney General\u2019s Office in August 2024,6<\/a> Information was obtained from the registry of cases involving missing persons, those who have been located, and those classified as enforced disappearances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Table 1 shows the case records for the period from January 2008 to July 2024. As can be seen, the Chihuahua State Attorney General\u2019s Office had a total of 40,701 missing or unaccounted-for persons at that time, of whom more than 80% were male.\u00a0In particular, the State Prosecutor\u2019s Office Specializing in the Investigation of Human Rights Violations and Enforced Disappearances reports 41 cases it has classified as enforced disappearances. This data is important because these are cases in which it has been established, in accordance with the United Nations International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance: <\/p>\n\n\n\n arrest, detention, abduction, or any other form of deprivation of liberty carried out by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge such deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, thereby removing them from the protection of the law (onu<\/span>, 2006). <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the case of Mexico, the implications of the disappearance of the 43 teacher-training students from Ayotzinapa, Guerrero;\u00a0the increase in the number of missing persons during the administrations of Felipe Calder\u00f3n and Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto, pressure from groups of relatives of missing persons, as well as the ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Court idh<\/span>) in the Alvarado Espinoza case against the Mexican government led to the enactment in November 2017 of the General Law on Enforced Disappearance of Persons, Disappearance Committed by Private Individuals, and the System for the Search for Persons.<\/em>7<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Given our interest in examining the northern region of Chihuahua, it is important not to lose sight of the implications of the direct involvement of state agents in enforced disappearances in the region, particularly the case of Alvarado Espinoza et al. v. Mexico.<\/em>8<\/a> On November 28, 2018, the Court idh,<\/span> based in San Jos\u00e9, Costa Rica, issued the final ruling in the case. The document describes the nine-year legal process, which began after members of the Alvarado family filed a complaint with various Mexican judicial authorities.\u00a0That complaint concerns the arbitrary detention and forced disappearance of three members of the Alvarado family, carried out by military personnel linked to the Chihuahua-Ju\u00e1rez Joint Operation on December 29, 2009. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The ruling shows how, during the so-called \u201cwar on drugs\u201d\u2014which began under the administration of Felipe Calder\u00f3n and continued during the first two years of Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto\u2019s administration\u2014\u00a0systematic human rights violations were committed by various public security agencies, branches of the armed forces, and judicial authorities. In general terms, the ruling states: <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Court found that the increased involvement of the Army in public safety efforts has been a consistent pattern in Mexico since 2006. In this context, the use of military forces in the fight against crime became a recurring practice through the implementation of so-called \u201cJoint Operations,\u201d in which police and military personnel participated together. This occurred without it having been established, for the purposes of this specific case, that safeguards governing the participation of the armed forces had been respected\u2014such as the exceptional nature, temporary nature, and strict necessity of the joint operation\u2014nor were there adequate regulations, protocols for carrying out such tasks, or oversight, and the facts alleged were even heard in military courts for a considerable period of time. In light of the analysis set forth above, the Court concludes that the Mexican State is internationally responsible for the enforced disappearance of Nitza Paola Alvarado Espinoza, Jos\u00e9 \u00c1ngel Alvarado Herrera, and Roc\u00edo Irene Alvarado Reyes, in violation of the rights to recognition as a legal person, to life, to personal integrity, and to personal liberty, established, respectively, in accordance with the American Convention and the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons (Excerpt from the judgment, Court idh<\/span>, 2018: 78). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Overall, the resolution is forceful in highlighting various human rights violations. These include rights such as the right to legal personality, the right to life, the right to personal integrity, and the right to personal liberty, freedom of movement, and freedom of residence, all of which are protected under the American Convention on Human Rights. In particular, it emphasizes the violation inherent in the act of enforced disappearance, as addressed in the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons.9<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n We must acknowledge that the existence of clandestine graves in various regions of the country is a clear indication of crimes against humanity (Ruiz Reyes, 2019).10<\/a> They are clearly linked to tactics of terror and fear employed by organized crime groups in collusion with Mexican state agents for several decades. Fabrizio Lorusso (2021) argues that the category of \u201cmass grave\u201d in Mexico has become central to public, academic, and legal discourse, particularly in the wake of the crisis of enforced disappearances and the emergence of search collectives. He argues that the notion of a clandestine grave is not unambiguous: it depends on the disciplinary field (anthropology, law, criminology, forensic archaeology) and on the political, social, or legal objectives pursued by those who use it.11<\/a> To that end, he proposes the following definition: <\/p>\n\n\n\n A clandestine grave can be defined as any site where one or more corpses, skeletal remains and\/or human remains, in an illegal manner, with the presumed intent of concealing the whereabouts of one or more persons, hindering or preventing their location and\/or identification, destroying evidence, or, among other things, to prevent the authorities from investigating or prosecuting the reasons for and\/or the manner in which such acts were committed (Lorusso, 2021: 156). <\/p>\n\n\n\n I believe that Lorusso\u2019s approach, in general terms, allows for a deeper and more multidimensional perspective, since it conceives of the clandestine grave as a site of illegal burial, as well as a space marked by serious human rights violations and by social and political disputes surrounding memory and justice. They are not merely forensic objects, but resources that bear witness to the structural violence and humanitarian crisis we face. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The report Violence and Terror: Findings on Secret Graves in Mexico<\/em> shows that the discovery of clandestine graves has become a structural aspect of violence in the country, directly linked to forced disappearances, extrajudicial executions, and torture. In its study, which covered several states during the period from 2009 to 2014\u2014a time marked by peaks in homicidal violence across the country\u2014the report demonstrates that clandestine burial is part of a systematic pattern of extermination and concealment. The text argues that each clandestine grave constitutes not only a place of death but also a space of impunity and denial of rights, where multiple serious violations of human dignity occur:\u00a0\u201cThe discovery of clandestine graves reflects, on the one hand, the distinct patterns of violence in the country\u2019s states and municipalities and, on the other, the limited institutional capacity and political will at various levels of government to locate, record, and identify the bodies of individuals whose rights were completely denied\u201d (Gonz\u00e1lez N\u00fa\u00f1ez and Ch\u00e1vez Vargas, 2017: 15). <\/p>\n\n\n\n As the study shows, this practice of \u201cnecropower\u201d is not exclusive to northern Chihuahua, as it is a systematic practice of control and domination over territories based on fear and forced disappearance.\u00a0Furthermore, these practices are also used to suppress resistance, discipline society, and consolidate power through fear. Drawing on Mbembe (2011), necropower is defined as the capacity of the state and other actors to exercise absolute control over the life and death of individuals, determining which bodies may be eliminated without legal or moral consequences. In this sense, we begin by arguing that clandestine graves function as sites of forced disappearance, embodying the sovereign decision regarding the life and death of groups considered dangerous or in vulnerable situations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus, the concept of territory takes on key significance in understanding this phenomenon. Rodolfo Gami\u00f1o Mu\u00f1oz (2021) proposes the category of \u201cmicro-spaces of exception\u201d to analyze how certain territories marked by forced disappearance are configured as zones suspended from the legal and social order, where the state delegates or abdicates its sovereignty, though it maintains a selective, punitive, or symbolic presence. Based on a study of clandestine graves and extermination camps located in different regions of the country, Gami\u00f1o explains how these spaces not only exist outside the law but are actively produced by state logics of exclusion and necropolitics. For this author, these \u201cmicro-spaces of exception\u201d are characterized by their apparent invisibility, as they are embedded in everyday life\u2014on abandoned properties, along roadsides, or in outlying areas\u2014yet they function as mechanisms of death and dispossession. The existence of these microspaces, as we will see later, seeks both to physically eliminate dissent and to establish a system of structural violence that paralyzes society through fear and uncertainty.12<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n In Latin America, the military dictatorships of the second half of the century xx<\/span> They implemented the systematic use of forced disappearances and mass graves as a method of political repression. In Argentina, during the 1976\u20131983 dictatorship, Operation Condor coordinated a network of repressive cooperation among the region\u2019s military regimes, resulting in the disappearance of approximately 30,000 people (Verbitsky, 1995). Chile, under the Pinochet regime, employed similar strategies, notably in cases such as Pisagua and Patio 29, where hundreds of opponents were buried in clandestine graves (Stern, 2010). In Mexico, the discovery of mass graves in the xxi<\/span> It has been linked to drug-trafficking-related violence and to state complicity in enforced disappearances (Gonz\u00e1lez Rodr\u00edguez, 2012). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Carolina Robledo (2020) argues that mass graves represent the physical disappearance of bodies and, at the same time, a form of territorial dispossession, in which terror becomes a strategy for social reorganization and control over communities. The location of clandestine graves reflects spatial logics of exclusion and marginalization, reinforced by the state and criminal groups in a symbiotic relationship of necropolitical power. In this regard, Fabrizio Lorusso (2021) argues that, in the case of Mexico, the proliferation of clandestine graves illustrates a phenomenon of necropolitical governmentality, in which disappearance and death are integrated into the country\u2019s economic and political dynamics. Impunity and the lack of investigation into these crimes reinforce a system of structural violence that perpetuates fear as a mechanism of social control. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, as Diana Tello (2021) argues, we cannot overlook the trauma experienced by the relatives of disappeared persons\u2014particularly mothers\u2014as they shift from the hope of finding their loved ones alive to the painful acceptance that they must search for them in clandestine graves. Tello argues that this shift is not only emotional but also deeply political and epistemic: it involves learning to navigate forensic language, negotiating with state institutions, and reframing the child\u2019s body as a trace that can be exhumed and reconstructed (Tello, 2017:\u00a015). The author highlights how this process upends conventional notions of grief, as it is experienced without a body, without closure, and under a logic of constant revictimization by the state. Furthermore, it is interesting how she emphasizes the production of situated knowledge by the searching mothers, who, through their daily actions, become experts on the territory, on evidence, and on the technologies of pain, transcending their assigned role as passive victims. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Generally speaking, we can consider that the use of clandestine graves as a tool of terror stems from a logic of \u201cnecro-power\u201d in which Mexican state agents, in collusion with large-scale criminal networks, decide which bodies to dispose of without facing any legal or moral consequences. Enforced disappearance and the illegal burial of victims seek not only to exterminate an individual but also to generate collective trauma that paralyzes society through fear and becomes embedded in the territory as a logic of domination\u2014what Rossana Reguillo (2021) calls the \u201cnecromachine.\u201d.13<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Let's not lose sight of the fact that the phenomenon of forced disappearances in the state of Chihuahua has a long history. Since the 1970s, xx<\/span>, in the context of the so-called \u201cdirty war,\u201d cases of forced disappearances carried out by state agents were a common practice in this region of the country (Quintana, 2013). A repressive policy against dissent during that era found its most visible expression in the disappearance and murder of members of the September 23 Communist League.14<\/a> The repressive state apparatus of that time, in coordination with police and military forces, operated under a counterinsurgency strategy that sought to stifle any political dissent through terror. During that period, Chihuahua became a region where forms of institutional violence were tested, leaving an indelible mark on the collective memory and setting precedents for impunity and social control. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Beyond this background, our focus is on examining how the discovery of clandestine graves linked to territories disputed by major criminal groups has unfolded in recent years. This phenomenon has gained prominence due to the high number of sites that have been documented since 2008, with the launch of Operativo Conjunto Chihuahua\u2014a key component of Felipe Calder\u00f3n\u2019s \u201cwar on drugs\u201d\u2014serving as an essential reference point, as well as the control that criminal groups have established in various regions of the northern part of the state. Let us not lose sight of the fact that the discovery of bodies showing signs of violence in uninhabited areas or abandoned lots falls within that period.\u00a0It is important not to lose sight of the phenomenon of systemic femicide, a clear indication of how, over the last few decades, atrocious violence against the bodies of women\u2014particularly in Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez\u2014has taken root.15<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n With regard to the registry that the State Attorney General\u2019s Office has been compiling on sites where clandestine burials have been discovered, Table 2 shows the number found during the study period. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The State Attorney General\u2019s Office maintains a record of cases involving clandestine graves that have been located and excavated to recover human remains in an effort to identify missing persons whose whereabouts remain unknown. This record shows how the number of such incidents has increased. Through a request for access to information,16<\/a> Below, we will present data on the number of clandestine burial sites, as well as the number of graves located at these sites, including the number of individuals registered and identified during the period from January 2008 to December 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While we are focusing on the northern part of the state, it is worth keeping an eye on the distribution of clandestine graves and the number of bodies and skeletal remains recorded in other municipalities in Chihuahua. For example, in the central region, the city of Chihuahua stands out with a total of 55 clandestine graves and 65 records of skeletal remains;\u00a0Cuauht\u00e9moc, with 28 graves and 35 recorded sets of human remains; and Aldama, with 15 graves and 21 recorded sets of human remains. In the southern and western mountainous region, the municipalities of Bocoyna have 12 clandestine graves and 16 recorded sets of human remains; Guachochi, with 12 clandestine graves and 19 recorded sets of human remains;\u00a0Guerrero, with 12 clandestine graves and 21 records of skeletal remains; Urique, with 10 clandestine graves and 18 records of skeletal remains; and Hidalgo del Parral, with 11 clandestine graves and 11 records of skeletal remains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It is noteworthy that, during this period, reports of clandestine graves were concentrated in the Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez and Valle de Ju\u00e1rez regions, which accounted for more than half of all cases during the study period. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As can be seen, in the municipality of Ju\u00e1rez\u2014which encompasses Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez and a few small towns in the Ju\u00e1rez Valley\u2014there are 190 recorded burial sites, with a total of 225 clandestine graves located at those sites. Regarding the findings, Table 3 shows that there is a record of 381 skeletal remains or bodies entered into the system, of which only 221 individuals have been identified. This number increases significantly when considering the three municipalities that make up the Ju\u00e1rez Valley region\u2014Ju\u00e1rez, Guadalupe, and Praxedis G. Guerrero\u2014 as there are 234 recorded burial sites with a total of 281 clandestine graves, in which 459 skeletal remains or bodies were found, of which 264 individuals have been identified. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This overwhelming number of reports cannot be understood without acknowledging the crisis of impunity, insecurity, and the rise in heinous violence that the region has experienced. The proliferation of clandestine graves not only highlights the magnitude of the horror but also reflects the fracture in the social fabric and the absence of effective mechanisms for justice. In the words of a member of the cdh Step<\/span> Northern: <\/p>\n\n\n\n The issue of disappearances, along with the discovery of clandestine graves, raises the possibility that these may be cases of forced labor and recruitment; a pattern we have observed in the discovery of these graves is that they occur in areas where authorities lack control over the territory. These are areas where criminal groups have co-opted communities\u2014sometimes entire ones\u2014and work very closely with authorities, not only through acquiescence but also through the active participation of members of police forces in the commission of these crimes, including cases of failure to act or obstruction of investigations into disappearances. In areas like Palomas or the Ju\u00e1rez Valley\u2014which are rural, unlike Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez\u2014it is abundantly clear that the authorities were directly involved. What we are seeing is institutional neglect\u2014and a very calculated form of neglect\u2014designed to facilitate or allow criminal groups to take control of these areas (Interview with a member of the cdh <\/span>Paso del Norte, June 9, 2025). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Collusion among authorities\u2014particularly organizations responsible for public safety\u2014has been one of the factors that help explain the increase in cases of enforced disappearance in the region. In addition, the militarization of public security\u2014as seen both during the Chihuahua Joint Operation from 2008 to 2013 and Operation Secure Border in 2019\u2014\u00a0far from curbing the violence, has contributed to the normalization of atrocious practices such as enforced disappearance, facilitating the systematic concealment of bodies in rural and hard-to-reach areas. This humanitarian crisis is exacerbated by the state\u2019s negligence in searching for and identifying victims, which perpetuates the families\u2019 suffering and reinforces a climate of terror and impunity that prevents the reconstruction of collective memory and the demand for justice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Table 4 shows the case of the municipality of Ju\u00e1rez, where it is evident that there is a correlation between the number of skeletal remains-corpse found at burial sites, which is primarily linked to the period of the Chihuahua Joint Operation between 2008 and 2012;\u00a0however, this trend is not exclusive to that period, as it is important to note that in the last six years there have again been spikes in the number of discoveries, linked above all to the control that criminal groups have gained in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We do not want to overlook the discovery of clandestine graves in the community known as El Willy, in Casas Grandes, Chihuahua.17<\/a> A case that represents not only a stark act of horror, but also an X-ray of the mechanisms of extermination operating in the country under the logic of \u201cnecropower,\u201d in which the disappeared body becomes the subject of symbolic, political, and territorial disputes. In a region plagued by collusion between organized crime and state actors,18<\/a> The discovery of at least 76 human skeletons on a ranch hidden in the mountains of the northwestern Sierra of Chihuahua lays bare the depth of the crisis of impunity and institutional failure that enables and perpetuates these acts of barbarism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to official information and news reports,19<\/a> The discovery at El Willy was made possible thanks to the collaboration of an informant from the United States, which in and of itself reveals the lack of effective internal mechanisms for investigation and prevention. The exhumation efforts, initiated in January 2025 by the Chihuahua State Attorney General\u2019s Office, in conjunction with the Local Search Commission and members of the National Guard and the Army, reveal a systematic pattern of body concealment allegedly carried out by the criminal group La L\u00ednea, the armed wing of the Ju\u00e1rez Cartel. The victims, many of whom remain unidentified, showed signs of extreme violence: mutilations, dismemberments, and evidence of torture. This level of cruelty is not only a form of physical elimination but also a strategy of symbolic domination over entire communities. The reaction from groups of relatives of missing persons, together with human rights organizations, was immediate: they demanded clarification of the identities of the people buried there, as well as the context and the reasons why they were murdered and buried in that location.20<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n At El Willy, the regional prosecutor told us that there were young people who worked cleaning windshields, who were also recruited\u2014albeit forcibly\u2014and that they were found at the El Willy ranch. Not all of the people found at the ranch have been identified; we do not know for certain whether all those who were buried there were opponents of the criminal group or whether some were individuals who did not meet all the recruitment standards and were killed on the premises. There is information\u2014primarily from journalistic sources\u2014that these are people who attempt to enter the area without authorization, intending to work as transporters, and who are then disappeared along the way. Based on some interviews with survivors\u2014such as one of the cases we are handling at the Center\u2014it appears that this was indeed a matter of forced labor to carry out contract killings (Interview with a member of the cdh<\/span> Paso del Norte, June 7, 2025).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n![](\"https:\/\/encartes.mx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/imagen_1_salvador_y_vladimir.jpg\")
\n <\/i>\n <\/a>\n <\/figure> <\/div> \n <\/div>\n Introduction <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Enforced Disappearance as a Mechanism of Necropower <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n <\/i>\n <\/a>\n <\/figure> <\/div> \n <\/div>\n The Secret Grave: Micro-Spaces of Exception <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n <\/i>\n <\/a>\n <\/figure> <\/div> \n <\/div>\n A Landscape of Atrocious Violence: Mass Graves in Northern Chihuahua <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n <\/i>\n <\/a>\n <\/figure> <\/div> \n <\/div>\n
* It is important to note that a burial site is the location where skeletal remains or bone fragments were found, and that one or more clandestine graves may exist at such a site. This explains why the table shows that, in some municipalities, the number of sites is lower than the total number of graves located.
Source: Compiled by Salvador Salazar Guti\u00e9rrez and Vladimir Hern\u00e1ndez Hern\u00e1ndez using information provided by the Chihuahua State Attorney General\u2019s Office and municipalities in the northern region, January 1, 2008, through March 15, 2024. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
in the municipality of Ju\u00e1rez, Chihuahua, from 2008 to 2023.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nAn Expression of Atrocious Violence: Recent Findings at El Willy <\/h2>\n\n\n\n