Searchers in the Juárez valley turned up human remains in 26 locations during a massive search operation on the weekend.

Some 250 police and other state officials, relatives of missing persons and others combed an area of five square kilometers near the community of El Millón, in the municipality of Guadalupe.

State authorities said investigations had revealed that bodies could have been buried in hidden narco-graves in the area. The bodies of dozens of murder victims have been found there in the past.

“During the first stage of the search this morning,” said district attorney Jorge Arnaldo Nava López on Saturday, “human remains including skulls, jaws, clavicles, and femurs were found in about 26 places.”

By Sunday afternoon, after a second day of searching, about 200 bone fragments had been found.

Specialists from the state Attorney General’s office will conduct DNA tests on the remains to identify them.

Due to the remains’ advanced state of decomposition it wasn’t possible to determine how many bodies they might represent, officials said.

But Nava said today the victims could have been killed between 2009 and 2011.

The bodies of many women believed to have been kidnapped had previously been discovered in the region. At least 17 have been identified by their families.

Source: Milenio (sp)