Clandestine graves have become one of the crudest faces of violence in Mexico, while this scenario is intertwined with forced disappearances, a pain for thousands of families who have spent years searching for their loved ones.
And the state of Chihuahua is no exception, since during the last 18 months at least 257 clandestine graves were registered, in a period from January 2024 to June 2025, according to official information from the State Attorney General’s Office.
This figure, without considering that several of these graves contained more than one body, so the number of victims could be considerably higher.
According to data provided by the State Attorney General’s Office (FGE), during 2024 Ciudad Juarez was the municipality with the highest number of graves found, with 97, followed by Chihuahua City, with 24.
In addition, during the first semester of 2025, another 12 clandestine graves were located on this border. However, the focus shifted to the northwest of the state, in the Casas Grandes area, where 48 graves were located.
The case of “El Willy”
One of the most complex cases documented during this period was that of a property known as El Willy, in the municipality of Buenaventura, which the General Directorate of Forensic Services and Forensic Sciences followed up on between January and March of this year.
In an interview with Circuito Frontera, the director of this area, Javier Sanchez Herrera, informed that 63 graves were processed in that place, 46 of which contained human remains.
However, according to him, remains corresponding to the minimum number of 72 people were finally recovered at El Willy, given the state of dismemberment in which the bodies were found.
The official explained that this number was determined by the forensic anthropology team after an extensive process of analysis and association of remains.
Although other related findings are added to this case: six bodies recovered in the area known as Mesa de la Avena and 12 more in a gap in the municipality of Ascensión, which gives a total of 92 victims recovered in this context.
Of that total, 45 bodies have been returned to their families so far, thanks to the work of the forensic genetics laboratory, which was able to obtain the genetic profile of 100 percent of the remains.
However, Sanchez Herrera said that the Prosecutor’s Office has not been able to return the rest due to the lack of matches in the database of relatives of missing persons.
Last identifications
Regarding this case, personnel from the State Attorney General’s Office in Chihuahua has progressively announced the advances regarding the victims located in El Willy.
Last May 26, 2025, the FGE informed that the remains of 40 people had been fully identified and their bodies were handed over to their relatives.
Four others had already been recognized and were in the process of notification, while 17 more cases were in advanced analysis awaiting genetic confirmation, and the rest, i.e. 29 victims, were still in the process of identification.
Subsequently, on July 23, a new operation was carried out in El Willy, where bone fragments were found and transferred to the Forensic Anthropology area to determine their origin.
On August 5, the Prosecutor’s Office announced a particular case that shocked the region: the identification of a 16-year-old adolescent, with initials C.A.G.L., reported missing since July 12, 2024.
The authorities informed that the teenager’s body was found during the month of January and, after the application of genetic analysis protocols, it was handed over to his family.
A day later, on August 6, the identification of another body recovered at the same site was reported: a 37-year-old man, initials R.G.F., missing since February 2023, whose remains were also returned to his relatives.
The call to families
Given the magnitude of the findings, the head of the General Directorate of Forensic Services and Forensic Sciences called on families with missing persons to donate a biological sample to expand the universe of genetic search.
Sanchez Herrera reiterated that the Prosecutor’s Office works with the intention of restoring the identity and dignity to the victims, however, it is crucial to count on the collaboration of the citizens.
However, so far the Prosecutor’s Office has not clearly informed how many people have been arrested or prosecuted for their possible involvement in the operation or cover-up of these clandestine graves in the state.
International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances
This August 30, on the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, collectives of family members in Chihuahua and throughout the country emphasize that clandestine graves are evidence of institutional failure to prevent and address this crime.
According to information from the United Nations (UN), enforced disappearance has become a global problem that does not only affect a specific region of the world.
Special attention must also be paid to particularly vulnerable groups of people, such as children and people with disabilities, after hundreds of thousands of people have disappeared during conflicts or periods of repression in at least 85 countries around the world.
While Mexico faces a globally recognized crisis, with more than 100,000 people still missing, the state of Chihuahua occupies a central place in that statistic.
According to Red Lupa’s state report, a total of 3,710 people are missing in the state as of May 2024, of which 62.15 percent of the cases are between the ages of 15 and 39.
Therefore, for the families, exhumations and identification processes are not enough without a clear commitment to punish those responsible and guarantee non-repetition.
Even to this day, thousands of families in the country go through morgues, public prosecutor’s offices and farms in search of their loved ones, the demand remains the same: memory, truth and justice for those who are no longer here.
