Eyes on Mexico: The Drug War’s 2,000 Clandestine Graves

By Julian Hayda
A woman who has a missing relative carries flowers at the site where almost 300 human remains were found in clandestine graves in Colinas de Santa Fe, Veracruz state, Mexico, Monday, Oct. 15, 2018. A Mass was held here Monday, one day before the Solecito Collective is to be honored by Notre Dame for its work locating the remains of missing people in Veracruz state. The Solecito Collective is made up people searching for their missing loved ones.
A woman who has a missing relative carries flowers at the site where almost 300 human remains were found in clandestine graves in Colinas de Santa Fe, Veracruz state, Mexico, Monday, Oct. 15, 2018. A Mass was held here Monday, one day before the Solecito Collective is to be honored by Notre Dame for its work locating the remains of missing people in Veracruz state. The Solecito Collective is made up people searching for their missing loved ones. Felix Marquez / AP Photo
A woman who has a missing relative carries flowers at the site where almost 300 human remains were found in clandestine graves in Colinas de Santa Fe, Veracruz state, Mexico, Monday, Oct. 15, 2018. A Mass was held here Monday, one day before the Solecito Collective is to be honored by Notre Dame for its work locating the remains of missing people in Veracruz state. The Solecito Collective is made up people searching for their missing loved ones.
A woman who has a missing relative carries flowers at the site where almost 300 human remains were found in clandestine graves in Colinas de Santa Fe, Veracruz state, Mexico, Monday, Oct. 15, 2018. A Mass was held here Monday, one day before the Solecito Collective is to be honored by Notre Dame for its work locating the remains of missing people in Veracruz state. The Solecito Collective is made up people searching for their missing loved ones. Felix Marquez / AP Photo

Eyes on Mexico: The Drug War’s 2,000 Clandestine Graves

By Julian Hayda
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Many of Chicago’s Mexican-Americans trace their roots to the state of Michoacan. That’s where Mago Torres, an investigative reporter, found the first of 2,000 unmarked graves belonging to victims of Mexico’s drug war. While many argue that the War on Drugs has cooled down in recent years, the effects of this decades-long conflict are still being understood. Torres argues, too, that the violence hasn’t gone away because accountability is still sorely lacking. Torres helped create an online catalog of the graves called “A Donde Van los Desaparecidos” (Where Have the Disappeared Gone?), and co-authored a piece in The Intercept titled “2,000 Clandestine Graves: How A Decade Of The Drug War Turned Mexico Into A Burial Ground.”