Hundreds of bone fragments found in Mexico City ahead of World Cup

The Azteca Stadium sits in Mexico City, 100 days before the opening ceremony of the 2026 FIFA soccer World Cup, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

More than 1,000 bone fragments have been found near a lake in Mexico City, authorities and a volunteer group said, just weeks before it hosts the World Cup -- another grim reminder of the country’s violent drug war.

A collective of families looking for their loved ones said the gruesome findings near Lake Chalco demonstrated a “devastating reality” and “a forensic crisis of incalculable dimensions.”

While “the authorities want this to go unnoticed, the families want the whole world to know the tragedy that occurs in the country’s capital,” the group said in a statement.

City authorities last week began exhuming the lakefront site in the eastern part of Mexico City, and prosecutors announced Monday that some 300 bone fragments, which they believe could belong to three people, had been found.

But the volunteer group said they found more than 1,000 bone fragments in and around the site, including in areas which had already been examined by government agents.

More than 480,000 people have been killed and another 130,000 have gone missing in Mexico’s drug war since 2006, when the government deployed federal troops to take on the country’s powerful cartels.

A UN committee of experts has called the missing persons crisis a “crime against humanity,” saying efforts to recover human remains have been hampered by “acquiescence and omission on the part of public servants.”

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum attacked the report, arguing it ignored new policies implemented to support the families of the missing.

In a meeting with city officials on Friday, the activists demanded that searches be carried out without interruption until the site is fully inspected.

Both Mexico City and Guadalajara are preparing to host World Cup games in June, with protesters in both cities denouncing the government’s failure to properly investigate the disappearances. The United States and Canada are co-hosting the Cup.