video showing kidnapped youth apparently being forced to kill others
Decapitated bodies found in Mexico may be linked to video showing kidnapped youth apparently being forced to kill others
Mexican investigators said Thursday they have found four burned and decapitated bodies that might be related to the horrifying case of five kidnapped youths, one of whom was filmed apparently being forced to kill the others.
Prosecutors in the western state of Jalisco said the bodies were badly burned and had not yet been identified. But the bodies were found inside a building near where the young men were kidnapped the week before and later photographed in captivity.
The decapitations also matched details of a video that shows one member of the group apparently being forced to saw off his friend's head with a knife.
The families of the missing have said the clothing and appearance of the men seen in the photos and video matched their relatives.
The gruesome video transported Mexico back to the darkest days of drug cartel brutality in the early 2000s.
It also sparked a debate about whether President Andrés Manuel López Obrador heard - or pretended not to hear - shouted questions from reporters about the case at his morning news briefing Wednesday.
northern border state of Tamaulipas. Most had their skulls crushed with sledgehammers, and many were Central American migrants.
The new images shared on social media have drawn emotional reactions from citizens, columnists and politicians.
"In respect for the families... I will suspend the use of my social networks for 24 hours and tomorrow (Thursday) I will have no agenda," opposition presidential hopeful Xochitl Galvez said on social media, declaring herself "in mourning" for the young men.
We cannot be indifferent to their pain and that of all of Mexico," she wrote.
The suspected kidnapping and murders are "evidently linked to organized crime," the governor of Jalisco, Enrique Alfaro, said on social media.
"We are facing irrational, violent and direct attacks on the stability of Jalisco that demand a reaction from the Mexican state," he added.
Last month, officials said a drug cartel set off a coordinated series of seven roadway bombs in Jalisco that killed four police officers and two civilians. Alfaro said the explosions were "a trap" set by the cartel to kill law enforcement personnel.
Mexico has recorded more than 420,000 murders since the launch of a controversial military anti-drug offensive in 2006.
It has also registered more than 110,000 disappearances since 1962, most attributed to criminal organizations.

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