Cancun, Q.R. — A forensic burial site is nearly ready for the unidentified and unclaimed bodies located around the state. The 40-million-peso site will become the final resting place for the nearly 600 people that are currently in forensic care.
Quintana Roo Prosecutor Oscar Montes de Oca, said the grave site, which is nearing first-stage completion, is located in the northern region of the city. He said that forensic medical services around the state collectively have nearly 700 bodies, 600 of which will be buried in the first stage site once it’s ready which will take it to its full capacity.
Only 40 of the nearly 700 unclaimed bodies have been identified. “We are making progress. Some of the bodies have been identified and delivered to their families, but new ones arrive that are not identified or the relatives are not found,” he explained.
He said that most of the bodies are the result of murders and have been accumulating since 2018. Other unclaimed bodies will be placed in another stage of the forensic grave site which will also have a 600-body capacity and help to unload the state’s Forensic Medical Service (Semefo) facilities.
According to the Forensic Services of Mexico, each year, around 3,000 unidentified corpses are left in forensic care around the country. In Mexico, coordinating the identification of bodies is challenging since each of the 32 states has its own forensic service and operation system.
