Mexico: Local police involved in 2011 migrant massacres
Local police in the city of San Fernando in northern Mexico were involved in the 2011 massacres of 193 mainly Central American migrants whose bodies were found in mass graves, according to federal prosecutors.
The claim appeared in a memo sent by Mexico's Attorney General's Office to the National Security Archive, a Washington DC-based research organization that solicited the information under Mexican transparency laws. It published the memo on its website on Monday and highlighted the similarities in the case to what happened with the 43 teachers college students who disappeared in southern Guerrero state in September.
The students were abducted by local police linked to a drug cartel in the city of Iguala and handed over to the members of the Guerreros Unidos gang who after killing them are believed to have burned their bodies and dumped the remains into a river, according to Mexico's government.
The case has generated angry protests in Mexico and abroad over the alleged involvement of police and corrupt officials. Reports have emerged of mayors and police forces in cities in parts of Mexico being on the payroll of cartels.
