Mexico.- The Attorney General’s Office of Mexico confirmed this Monday the discovery and identification of the bodies of five of the ten miners who disappeared in Sinaloa, northwest of the country, more than two weeks ago and who worked for the Canadian mining company Vizsla Silver.
«Following up on the investigation initiated due to the disappearance of 10 workers from a mining company, in the state of Sinaloa, the FGR, in coordination with the Security Cabinet of the Government of Mexico, identified five bodies located on a property in the town of El Verde, in the municipality of La Concordia», a statement indicated.
The institution mentioned that “the ministerial authority has maintained contact with the victims’ families”, whose bodies in the cases where they have already been identified, will be transferred to the states of Zacatecas -in two cases-, as well as to Chihuahua, Sonora and Guerrero, -in the other three-.
The Case of the Missing Miners in Sinaloa, Mexico
Upon confirming the finding and identification of five of the sought-after workers, the FGR indicated that five more bodies are in the process of identification.
He also highlighted that the search for clues continues, as well as for any element that leads to the clarification of the facts, as part of the investigation carried out by the Public Ministry of the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime (Femdo), which carries out all the necessary procedures to prevent the facts from going unpunished.
The institution explained that agents from the Criminal Investigation Agency (AIC) of the FGR, and from the secretariats of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC), National Defense (Defense), the National Guard (GN) and state authorities participated in the finding and identification.
President Announces Arrests
This Monday, the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, assured that her Government is close to the families of the miners kidnapped a few weeks ago in the state of Sinaloa so that “such a situation does not happen again,” after the discovery of one of the bodies in a clandestine grave on Sunday.
Sheinbaum assured that four people were the first detainees in this case, who “mentioned” this information and highlighted that the Security Cabinet was “attentive” to locate their whereabouts.
The president specified that although the mining company, Vizsla Silver, is Canadian, the Canadian government has not spoken “directly” with Mexico about this issue.
The miners would have been illegally deprived of their freedom by an armed command on the morning of Friday, January 23, according to the testimony of relatives of the missing cited by local media.
Sinaloa, one of the main mineral-producing states in the country, also faces a persistent problem of violence and insecurity linked to organized crime, which has affected both local communities and productive sectors, including the mining industry.
