Authorities in northern Mexico say they’ve found a match for everything you read above in a private crematorium in Ciudad Juarez. They discovered 381 bodies piled up high and deep in the rooms. The Chihuahua state prosecutor’s office reported the horrific find and said it was a result of gross negligence by the workers at the crematorium.
Spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office, Eloy Garcia, reported that the bodies had not been cremated and were “just thrown like that, indiscriminately, one on top of the other, on the floor.” He further underscored that crematorium operators were aware of what their daily cremation capacity was. They otherwise completely failed to run their operations in a sound and sustainable manner.
In the process of that investigation, something pretty shocking came to light. Relatives of the dead were given “other material” rather than their loved ones’ ashes. This shocking disclosure has raised significant ethical questions. It calls into question how well the facility cared for the deceased and the trust families had in such a facility.
In retrospect, it was a shock that the early reports suggested that no more than 60 bodies had been found at the scene. It wasn’t long before those investigations found an even greater number, laying bare the sheer magnitude of the crisis in Mexico’s forensic system. Authorities believe some of the remains may have been at the crematorium up to two years. On top of that, it compounds the current issues of staffing shortages and budget cuts across the system.
Eloy Garcia stated, “Preliminarily, we have 381 bodies that were deposited irregularly in the crematorium, which were not cremated.” He further remarked on the necessity of properly managing such operations, saying, “You can’t take in more than you can process.”
In a major break in the case, one of the administrators of the crematorium has voluntarily surrendered himself to prosecutors. The authorities have been making concerted efforts to further their ongoing investigation. We are grateful that the local prosecutor’s office released these findings to draw attention to this ongoing and worsening crisis in Mexico’s forensic system. This system, not designed to handle an inundation of bodies due to increased violence and crime in recent years, has failed.
The atrocious conditions of this crematorium has left families and Ciudad Juarez community members in disbelief and anger. They call to account those whose actions, in their experience, manifest a pattern of gross negligence or outright disgraceful contempt for inherent human dignity.