Undeniable atrocities: Confronting crimes against humanity in Mexico

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Undeniable atrocities: Confronting crimes against humanity in Mexico

15 June 2016
Open Society Foundations (OSF)

AYOTZINAPA. TLATLAYA. SAN FERNANDO. These places in Mexico are known for the atrocities committed there—they are perhaps the best known of the country’s open wounds. But there are many others, perhaps less well known, such as Ojinaga, Allende, and Apatzingán. Nine years after the Mexican government first deployed federal armed forces to combat organized crime, civilians continue to suffer: killings, disappearances, and torture are carried out both by cartels and by the federal and state forces who are supposedly fighting them. From December 2006 through the end of 2015, over 150,000 people were intentionally killed in Mexico. Countless thousands have disappeared.

The Open Society Justice Initiative and five independent Mexican human rights organizations have spent four years examining the extent and nature of this crisis. We have concluded that there is a reasonable basis to believe that both state and non-state actors have committed crimes against humanity in Mexico.

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