MEXICO - The gates to the Izaguirre Ranch look much like any others you might find in the state of Jalisco. Two prancing horses on the front perhaps a nod to the surrounding cattle-grazing and sugarcane fields.
Yet what lies behind the black iron doors is allegedly evidence of some of Mexico's worst drug cartel violence of recent times.
Following a tip-off about the possible location of a mass grave, an activist group of relatives of some of Mexico's thousands of disappeared people went to the ranch, hoping to find some sign of their missing loved ones. What they found was far worse: 200 pairs of shoes, hundreds of items of clothing, scores of suitcases and rucksacks, discarded after the owners themselves were apparently disposed of.
Even more chilling, several ovens and human bone fragments were found at the ranch. The site was used, the activists claim, by the New Generation Jalisco Cartel for the forced recruitment and training of their foot-soldiers, and for torturing their victims and cremating their bodies. "There were children's toys in there," says Luz Toscano, a member of the Buscadores Guerreros de Jalisco Collective. "People were desperate", she recalls.
"They'd see the shoes and say: 'those look like the ones my missing relative was wearing when they disappeared'." Toscano believes the authorities must now go through all the personal effects piece by piece and make them available to the families for closer inspection. (BBC)
