Mass graves in Concordia cast a pall over Mexico’s famous Mazatlán carnival

At the entrance to La Clementina, a housing development in the municipality of Concordia, in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, there are five funeral wreaths and 12 votive candles. It is a floral offering in memory of the miners who were kidnapped at the end of January. The bodies of José Ángel Hernández Vélez, Ignacio Aurelio Salazar Flores, José Manuel Castañeda Hernández, José Antonio Jiménez, and Jesús Antonio de la O, all employees of the Canadian mining company Vizsla Silver, have been identified, while the whereabouts of five others remain unknown. The bodies were found in recently discovered mass graves in this municipality, which lies around 186 miles (300 km) south of Culiacán, the state capital.

The offerings cover part of the entrance to the site that served as the miners’ camp. It was here, on Friday, January 23, that a group of armed men linked to the Los Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel showed up. The criminals abducted 10 company employees. They murdered half of the kidnapped men and left their bodies in clandestine graves located in a town called El Verde, nine miles (15 km) from La Clementina.

“This is an incredibly painful time for the families of our colleagues, for our team and for the community of Concordia. We stand with the families and are doing what we can to support them, while also looking after our colleagues during this difficult period,” said Vizsla Silver President Michael Konnert in a statement.

The tragedy has diminished the charm of the picturesque community of Concordia. At the edge of town lies the cemetery, and a little further on stretches another, far more brutal zone of death, possibly some sort of extermination camp from which at least 14 bodies have been recovered so far, including those of employees of the Canadian mining company.

The Sinaloa State Department of Security and Citizen Protection said that authorities located the mass graves thanks to tips from citizens. The arrest of four members of Los Chapitos also helped; these individuals confessed to federal authorities that they kidnapped the miners after mistaking them for a rival group. Police found the graves on February 5.

First, a couple of graves were found, from which 10 bodies were exhumed. As the days passed, four more graves were discovered. The Sinaloa Attorney General’s Office reported the exhumation of four bodies between Monday, February 9, and Tuesday, February 10. Since then, trucks from the Forensic Medical Service have been entering and leaving the area, passing by a makeshift camp of women from various missing persons collectives. Among these are Tesoros Perdidos (Lost Treasures), Uniendo Corazones (Uniting Hearts), and Por las Voces Sin Justicia (For Voices Without Justice). They are waiting in the area to participate in the searches and see if they can identify any of the bodies that have been unearthed.

“We want to go there, to tell them to do DNA testing on the old bodies they took out; who knows, maybe my son is among them,” said Tomasa Jáuregui Valdivia, mother of Jaime Roberto Cristerna Jáuregui, who disappeared on November 16, 2019 in Mazatlán, a port 45 minutes away by car from Concordia.

The National Guard has set up three security checkpoints at the site of the mass graves. It is virtually impossible to enter for anyone who is not an employee of the Attorney General’s Office or the National Search Commission. The only certainty for the relatives of missing people is that bodies are still being exhumed a few feet away from the authorities’ roadblock.

“I want to go inside and see for myself, to really see how many graves there are, how many bodies they’ve recovered. I want to see it for myself, not have the Prosecutor’s Office tell us what they saw. I want to see it for myself. I want to rule out the possibility that my brother is in one of those graves,” said Alicia Gómez, sister of Kevin Osbaldo Gómez, who went missing on June 13, 2025. His trail also disappears in Mazatlán.

The searchers carry images on their cell phones with coordinates of possible clandestine graves. If these coordinates are overlaid on a map, they indicate where a search might take place. However, their possibilities are limited, since the authorities must leave the site first. It doesn’t seem like this will happen anytime soon.

“If it’s as they say, there are hundreds in there, but we can’t do anything until they let us in or at least give us some information,” said Marisela Carrizales, who has been searching for Ismael Alejandro Martínez since July 2020. He is another of the missing people from Mazatlán.

Concordia is a must-see for tourists visiting Mazatlán. Towns like Copala, Zavala, Pánuco and El Verde are usually popular destinations for those traveling along Mexico’s Pacific coast who want to explore small towns, sample local delicacies, and buy wooden furniture and clay figurines. But a harsh reality has, for the moment, erased the tourist appeal of this area. This is despite the fact that the Mazatlán Carnival, one of the most famous in Mexico, is just hours away from starting. Today, the colorful towns of the region have become a new symbol of violence. Before the arrival of tourists, the residents attend to the only visitors in town: soldiers and police officers in trucks belonging to the Army, the National Guard, the Navy, and the Forensic Medical Service.

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