Cartel Gunmen Attack Mothers Searching for Mass Graves in Mexico

A group of cartel gunmen attacked a search party of women who were looking for clandestine gravesites throughout Mexico in an attempt to find their loved ones. The women survived the ordeal when a police escort fought off the attack.

The cartel attack took place over the weekend near the city of Hermosillo in the state of Sonora — a region controlled by factions of the Sinaloa Cartel.

The group Madres Buscadoras de Sonora (Sonora’s Mothers in Search) posted a statement where they thanked the federal and state authorities who fended off the attack allowing them to escape.

The term Mothers in Search or Searching Mothers gained much popularity throughout Mexico where thousands of victims go missing at the hands of drug cartels and are never heard from again. Criminal organizations dispose of the bodies in clandestine gravesites or crematoriums. Without a body to classify the case as a murder or a ransom demand to classify it as a kidnapping, government officials are able to avoid counting those people in their crime statistics in order to minimize the perception of violence in the region.

According to a short video posted on social media by activist Ceci Flores Armenta, the leader of Madres Buscadoras (Mothers in Search), they had received an anonymous call about a clandestine grave with several bodies where the son of one of their members had reportedly been buried.

The group headed south from Hermosillo toward a hill called La Virgen when the group of gunmen attacked them.

“The mothers are in shock, we feel vulnerable,” Armenta said. “We ask the cartels to let us search. We don’t want justice or are searching for guilty parties.”

“We just want to give a proper burial to our sons,” Armenta added, appealing to the cartels. “We ask you as the human beings that you are.”

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com. 

Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.