"A mass grave with a national anthem": Mourning a killing field in Mexico

Dear friends,

"Each visitor invented their own narrative", writes Mexican journalist Marcela Turati, describing a chaotic press tour of the Izaguirre ranch in the western Mexican state of Jalisco on March 20.

The tour, attended by Mexican social media influencers and international media alike, put the town of Teuchitlán and the ranch site - variously referred to as an extermination camp, kill zone, and/or terror training center for the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación - into the global headlines. The media reports said that human remains, backpacks, shoes, clothing, and cremation ovens had been found on the ranch, which was now being excavated by authorities for forensic evidence.

Meanwhile, continues Turati, members of the Guerreros Buscadores de Jalisco, a collective of family members who search for disappeared relatives who entered the site in early March with a photographer from Associated Press, “insist ... that the excavation site where the remains were found was altered.”