Five missing Canadian mining workers found dead in Mexico

Mexican authorities said Monday that five of 10 missing workers from a mine operated by a Canadian company in the northwestern state of Sinaloa have been identified among 10 bodies found in clandestine graves last week in a nearby community.

The Attorney General’s Office said in a statement that the remaining bodies are still waiting to be identified.

Vancouver-based Vizsla Silver Corp. said in a statement Monday that “several families have informed it that their relatives, our colleagues, who were taken from the company’s project site in Concordia, Mexico, have been found deceased.”

The company said it was still waiting for confirmation from Mexican authorities. Neither the company nor the Mexican authorities have commented on what a possible motive could be.

“We are devastated by this outcome and the tragic loss of life,” said Vizsla President and CEO Michael Konnert. “Our focus remains on the safe recovery of those who remain missing and supporting all affected families and our people during this incredibly difficult time.”

Jaime Castañeda said he identified the body of his brother, José Manuel Castañeda Hernández, on Sunday by seeing photographs shown to him by local officials in Mazatlán, CBC News reported.

“The truth is that it has been very painful to be here, in a place where we don’t want to be,” Jaime Castañeda told CBC News in a telephone interview.

José Manuel Castañeda Hernández, 43, was a husband and father of two children, his brother told CBC News.

“It’s so difficult to see… how they suffer,” Jaime Castañeda helps. “There is no justice with what is happening.”

Mexican authorities announced this Friday the discovery of bodies and remains in an area of ​​the ongoing search for 10 missing workers from the Canadian gold and silver mine.

The office also reported the arrest of four people believed to be linked to the workers’ disappearances.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday that those suspects had led authorities to the bodies. “Everything is under investigation,” he said.

The mountainous region is one of several spots in the state where a turf war has raged for more than a year between two rival factions of the Sinaloa poster.

On January 28, Vizsla reported the kidnapping of 10 people at its facilities. It said it had alerted authorities and that its crisis management and security response teams were involved in the search.

The federal government increased the number of troops deployed in the state and launched an operation to find the workers.

The mines have been targets of organized crime on other occasions in Mexico, as cartels see opportunities to extort or even sell the valuable mineral themselves.

On Monday, Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha said that several clandestine graves They were located last week, but said the search continued.

Rocha also referred to the kidnapping of a group of Mexican tourists from Mazatlán last week. He said a woman and a child who were with them were found alive, but four people were still missing.

In Sinaloa there are more than 7,000 missing people, some of the more than 132,000 missing nationwide, according to federal data.

Last month, Sheinbaum said efforts to crack down on Mexican cartels were working. “convincing results” in an effort to avoid talks of intervention by the Trump administration.

The comments come after President Trump threatened action against Mexican drug cartels by US forces. Trump told News that the United States had “eliminated 97% of the drugs that came by water” and that the United States was “going to start attacking land, regarding the cartels.”