A Vatican Radio message on the fourth day of Pope Francis’ trip to Mexico, acknowledges the “escalating number of ‘desparacidos’” in the country but does not mention their manner of death, and the network of ovens operated in the state of Coahuila.
“Desparacido,” when translated from Spanish, means “late,” “deceased,” and “missing.”
There have been more than 20,000 people in Mexico disappear in ten years, the Official Vatican Network concedes. It also said that the UN says that number is over 26,000. These numbers do not “relate exclusively to Michoacan,” the state where Pope Francis is visiting today, the broadcast said.
As reported by Breitbart Texas, Pope Francis was in Morelia on Tuesday, the capital of the state of Michoacan. He spoke to citizens and young people who have lived in a country hit hard by drugs, drug smuggling, and trafficking by violent drug cartels.
In the Vatican address, drugs are referred to as “messengers of death.”
Michoacan has been utterly vexed with drug violence and Vatican radio acknowledges that the state is “most identified with the drug trade.”
Indeed, gang activities have been so prolific that in February 2013 an armed uprising by vigilante groups began.
The federal government has had to respond to the drug-related violence and in May 2015, it deployed thousands of troops to Michoacan. They have tried to curtail the lawlessness of the cartels but the violence has continued, as reported by Breitbart News.
Breitbart Texas reported last week that the Los Zetas cartel has carried out mass extermination in the northern state of Coahuila. Men, women, and children have been burned in these ovens during 2011-2013 when the Los Zetas have been in control of most of Coahuila. The network of ovens, found even inside a state prison, were used to incinerate their victims.
Breitbart Texas’ Brandon Darby and Ildefonso Ortiz traveled to Mexico and reported that despite the horrors that such a large gravesite represents, Mexican mainstream media has largely ignored the kidnappings and exterminations.
The atrocities have also remained largely unreported and undocumented by any local, state, federal, or international governmental agencies. The former governor, the city jails, and even the news media, have been controlled by the Los Zetas. At one point the Los Zetas had such control of the prison, they tortured, murdered and incinerated over 150 individuals, Darby and Ortiz reported.
The pair also noted that while some aspects of a massacre in Coahuila has been reported in some national Mexican news outlets like Proceso, it has largely been ignored by the Mexican and U.S. mainstream media and elsewhere. Aljazeera America and San Antonio Express News have reported on the disappearances but have not linked Los Zetas control of the Piedras Negras prison where the cartel turned it into a crematorium.
Even as the Pope visits the tormented state of Mexico, another mass grave has been discovered.
Breitbart Texas’ Ildefonso Ortiz reported on Tuesday that another mass grave in Mexico was discovered in the Playa Vicente area, a city located in the southern portion of the state of Veracruz. The search for the five young men kidnapped by police officers and then given to cartel members, led to the gruesome discovery.
While thousands of fragments belonging to as many as 450 bodies were being dug up by Mexican authorities, Ortiz noted that most of the media’s coverage was on Pope Francis’s visit.
A copy of the Vatican broadcast can be found here.
Lana Shadwick is a writer and legal analyst for Breitbart Texas. Follow her on Twitter@LanaShadwick2