04.09.19/Ashes

Journalist Darwin Franco investigated the systematic incineration of unidentified bodies by state authorities in Jalisco. He found that between 2006 and 2015, the forensic medical service (SEMEFO) incinerated 1,559 bodies –an “administrative solution” to the “sanitary risk” posed by hundreds of decomposing bodies. As in other parts of the country, getting rid of bodies has become routine every time new space is required to make room for the arrival of new bodies. Among those incinerated was, allegedly (though not conclusively), 20 year-old Honduran migrant Antonio López Enamorado. Antonio disappeared on February 7, 2014. The ashes his mother was given correspond, according to Jalisco’s own records, to a body that was received one year earlier, on February 8, 2013, and was incinerated on January 14, 2013 –that is, a month earlier than when it arrived in the morgue, again according to Jalisco’s records. Despite these flagrant anomalies, authorities insist on having corroborated Antonio’s identity. They claim that he hanged himself from a bridge. In this photo caption, his mother is quoted:

I will never accept these ashes because doing so would mean that I accept all the irregularities that have been committed around the disappearance [and alleged identification] of my son.

Also in the case of San Fernando, the Mexican state repatriated bodies that had been cremated without the consent of families, who were merely sent ashes (and, in one case, a casket filled with putrefying liquids and crumpled newspapers) without confirmation of identity.