How a dog helped in finding unclaimed bodies in gang-plagued Mexican region

Guanajuato: An NGO group and forensic experts have been working at the grave to exhume more bodies.

A dog helped authorities to find 53 bags of human remains found scattered around a graveyard in a Mexican region, which was once riddled with cartel gang violence. In late October, residents of Irapuato town in Guanajuato state witnessed a dog carrying a human hand in its mouth.

Guanajuato: Police officers protect members of the "Hasta Encontrarte" ("Until we find you") collective during the search. (AFP)

Since then, an NGO group and forensic experts have been working at the grave to exhume more bodies.

"While people from all over the world were celebrating the Cervantino festival, we were digging up bodies, and at the same time I thought it was useless because they were burying more people elsewhere," Mendoza, founder of a women's collective searching for missing persons, told AFP.

The search comes after recent gang violence in Guanajuato which is an industrial hub in Mexico- home to factories of foreign auto giants.

Guanajuato, and its adjoining places, have seen a rise in cartel turf wars as well. This year, the region has witnessed more than 2,400 murders —almost 10 per cent of the national total. Nearly 3,000 more people disappeared during the same period, AFP reported.

Reports say that the violence for the turf is primarily between the Jalisco New Generation and Santa Rosa de Lima cartels. For both, Guanajuato is an important drug corridor, along with other routes between Pacific ports and the United States.