5 mutilated bodies found in southern Mexico

ACAPULCO, Mexico — Five mutilated bodies were found in a region of southern Mexico where 11 decapitated corpses were discovered just three days ago, authorities said Sunday.

The five bodies were found early Sunday in the back of a vehicle abandoned in the municipality of Chilapa, the Guerrero state prosecutor’s office said in a statement. The bodies, which were also decapitated, have not been identified.

Guerrero is the same state where 43 students at a teachers college vanished in September after they were detained by local police and presumably handed over to a drug gang. Federal officials say witnesses have reported that the students were killed, but efforts to identify bone and other fragments discovered in the area are not yet complete and many of their relatives still hold out hope they are alive.

Authorities attribute much of the violence in the region to internal divisions in the drug gang once led by the Beltran Leyva brothers.

On Thursday, police found 11 decapitated and partially burned corpses by a roadside in Chilapa, along with messages presumably left by a drug gang.

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