Mass Burial in Ciudad Juarez

Mexican authorities bury the corpses of 67 unidentified people, 21 of which showed signs of violence in a cemetery in Ciudad Juarez near the US border.

It is estimated that several of those remains could belong to some of Mexico's 114,881 missing persons, according to government data.

The country has also recorded some 450,000 murders since a controversial anti-drug offensive with military involvement was launched at the end of 2006.

Mexican authorities buried 21 bodies of homicide victims who remained unidentified in a morgue in Ciudad Juárez, a city punished by drug trafficking violence.

The bodies of another 46 people who died from natural causes and accidents were also buried in the San Rafael cemetery in this city on the border with the United States, the regional prosecutor's office reported.

"Unfortunately, we are receiving victims every day, the result of violence," Héctor Jácome, coordinator of Expert Services of the Chihuahua state prosecutor's office, to which Ciudad Juárez belongs, told the press.

DNA samples were taken from the human remains, they were buried individually in wooden boxes and joined other bodies buried in previous years in the same cemetery.

Some morgues in Mexico are saturated due to budget deficits, personnel deficits, rapid DNA laboratories and a single forensic data bank.

The NGO Movement for Our Disappeared documents 52,000 unidentified bodies lying in morgues, cemetery graves and educational institutions.

It is estimated that several of these remains could belong to some of the 114,881 missing people in Mexico, according to government data.

The country has also recorded some 450,000 murders since a controversial anti-drug offensive with military participation was launched at the end of 2006.

This violence has become one of the main axes of the electoral campaign for the presidential elections that will be held on June 2.