Mexican forensic authorities authorized the burial of 117 bodies that remain unidentified or unclaimed, increasing to 560 the number of people with the same destination during the current government of the state of Chihuahua (north Mexico).
© Lusa
12/09/2026
by
Lusa
Othe remains correspond to persons who died between 2019 and 2025 and, although they are transferred to individual graves, the authorities consider burial to be a temporary destination, since the final objective remains to identify people and return them to families.
Héctor Manuel Jacob Hernández, coordinator of Forensic Sciences in the North Zone, explained to the EFE agency that, before authorising the procedure, the necessary studies are carried out to preserve the information that allows for further identification.
“ The decision to undertake burial is made, first, for health reasons and to avoid unnecessary overcrowding”, he stressed.
The person responsible indicated that, only after the completion of the corresponding forensic tests, obtaining postmortem data and the advance in the investigation processes is that the bodies are allowed to be buried.
The number of buried bodies reflects a problem that persists in the Mexican border city, characterized by a vast floating population and illegal immigration to the United States.
According to Jacob Hernández, among the people still to be identified, foreign migrants or citizens from other states of the country may even be found.
The burial of the 117 bodies will reduce the amount of remains that remain in the custody of forensic facilities.
Behind each buried body, an investigation remains open and the possibility that even years later, an identification will allow you to give it a name and return it to your relatives.
“The fact that we bring them here is a worthy way to treat them, to give them a temporary destination, if not the final destination, because the final destination is with families,” said Jacob Hernández.
Each body is placed in an individual and registered ditch and can therefore be located and exhumed if its identity is determined later.
The time a person remains in custody before arriving at this procedure varies according to the progress of each investigation, the expert pointed out.