The search for five young men kidnapped by police officers and turned over to cartel members has led to the gruesome discovery of yet another mass grave in Mexico. Thousands of fragments belonging to as many as 450 bodies are being dug up by Mexican authorities. Most of the media’s attention; however, has been diverted to the current visit by Pope Francis I.

The five young men were kidnapped on January 11 in the Playa Vicente area by state police. They were then turned over to cartel members, Mexico’s Proceso reported. Since then, Mexican authorities have found the remains of two of the young men at  ranch called El Limon in the southern part of Veracruz.

According to Mexico’s Animal Politico, authorities have found thousands of human body parts that belong to as many as 450 bodies. The bodies appear to have been dumped in these mass graves for years. The various stages of decay will make it difficult to identify the bodies, Animal Politico reported.

Just last week, Mexico’s Interior Secretariat acknowledged the find of some graves but minimized the information by leaving out mention of the number of bodies or human remains found there.

The Mexican government did confirm that the ranch was used as a staging area for drug trafficking, as a place to store stolen fuel and a factory for making makeshift armored vehicles used by cartel members.

This ranch is just one more illustration of the many massacres that cartel members have carried out in recent years in Mexico. Just last week Breitbart Texas reported about how Los Zetas had been able to carry out a mass extermination of men, women, and children in the northern state of Coahuila. In that massacre, Los Zetas used a network of ovens, some of which were inside a state prison, in order to incinerate their victims.

Despite the horrors that such a large gravesite represents, Mexican mainstream news outlets have largely ignored the case, currently their focus has been placed entirely on the visit of Pope Francis to various parts of Mexico. As part of his visit, Francis is to visit Ciudad Juarez which was, at one time, the murder capital of the world. In preparation for the Pope’s visit, government officials have flooded the area with law enforcement and military forces.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.