The News
Friday 29 of March 2024

NGO: at Least 17 Bodies Were Burned at Cocula Dump


basurero de cocula
basurero de cocula
The report by an independent group is consistent with the PGR's account

In the municipal dump in Cocula, Guerrero, at least 17 people were incinerated concludes the third expert analysis of fire released by the Attorney General’s Office (PGR).

This announcement was made by Ricardo Damián Torres, member and spokesperson for the multidisciplinary group of experts that convened to carry out this work.

“The collection of skeletal remains corroborates the sufficient evidence, and coincides among forensic teams from both the Attorney General’s Office and the Argentine forensic anthropology team, which determined that at least 17 adult humans were burned at site,” said Damián Torres.

On October 20, 2015, during the public hearing of the case Iguala that was held at the headquarters of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, the PGR and the Interdisciplinary Group of International Experts of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH), agreed to conduct this survey to determine it the ash pit of Cocula was the location of the incineration of the 43 students of the rural teaching college in Isidro Burgos, Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, as was asserted by some of the detainees in this case.

The collection of skeletal remains corroborates the sufficient evidence, and coincides among forensic teams from both the Attorney General’s Office and the Argentine forensic anthropology team, which determined that at least 17 adult humans were burned at site.”

-Damián Torres, fire expert

According to the results obtained by the experts John DeeHaan, Frederick Mowrer, James Quintiere, Ricardo Torres, José Torero and Mario Saldana, who worked for six weeks on the analysis, it was a confirmed that 17 adult humans were cremated at this location. However, they also hypothesized that the site conditions allow for all 43 bodies of the students to have been cremated there.

Damián Torres also stated, “We can hypothesize about the conditions, amount of fuel, time and circumstances necessary for a mass burning of 43 bodies as indicated in the statements of those detained for these deeds, however, only with a large-scale test can this possibility be confirmed. The group has agreed to enhance further tests in the coming weeks in order to scientifically verify if it was possible to carry out the burning 43 adult human bodies, the results of these tests will be disclosed when they are ready.”

An important aspect is that none of the international experts from the CIDH participated in this announcement, and neither was there a pronouncement from that team.

The results of this expertise corroborate with the PGR version of events, presented on January 27, 2015, by the former Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam, also known as the “historical truth” of the events of the night and early hours of September 26 and 27 of 2014 in Iguala, Guerrero.

THE NEWS