5 corpses found in clandestine burial pit in southern Mexico

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican authorities say they have found a clandestine burial pit with at least five corpses in a town where President Andres Manuel López Obrador got his political start.

Prosecutors in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco said late Tuesday they found the bodies of five adults after about a day of digging, but can’t determine their ages or identities yet.

The state prosecutors’office said “there are indications there could be more in the pit,” but that would have to be confirmed by further excavation.

The pit was found in the Tabasco township of Nacajuca, an impoverished but relatively quiet Chontal Indian town where López Obrador served as the government representative for the Indigenous Institute in the late 1970s and early 1980s, his first major public post.

López Obrador acknowledged Monday that crime and violence has been the toughest challenge for his administration.

The number of homicides in the first year of López Obrador’s administration increased by 3.75% to 35,595, compared to the same period a year earlier.

López Obrador said his administration has been able to slow the rate of increase in homicides.

“We are controlling the tendency of increases in these crimes,” the president said Wednesday.

But figures for November, the latest month available, suggest that killings actually rose by about 7% as compared to November 2018.