61 bodies discovered at abandoned crematorium in southern Mexico

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MEXICO CITY — Police have uncovered bodies of 61 people, including children, at an abandoned crematorium in Mexico’s Pacific coast resort of Acapulco in southern Guerrero state, officials said Friday.

Police found “perfectly embalmed bodies” of men, women and children “ready for cremation” at a crematorium called Cremaciones Del Pacifico, the State Prosecutor’s Office (FGE) said in a press release.

“An anonymous tip” led police to the site late Thursday, the FGE said.

State Prosecutor Miguel Angel Godinez said authorities were trying to determine how to classify the crime, according to the daily El Universal.

“We have a clear violation of sanitary laws … possibly fraud, because the crematorium has been abandoned. However, we couldn’t say for certain at the moment,” he told the daily by phone.

The official said authorities didn’t know the whereabouts of the owner of the business.

The FGE, meanwhile, said the president of the Guerrero State Association of Funeral Homes was giving testimony.

The agency was looking to consult “the files of all the people sent to the crematorium from 2013 to the present,” the FGE said.

The bodies, covered in lime and white sheets, appeared to have languished at the site for about a year and were rotting, media reported.

The discovery comes amid ongoing protests sparked by the disappearance and probable massacre in late September of 43 students from the town of Ayotzinapa, Guerrero.