Jessica Xantomila
La Jornada newspaper
Sunday, February 9, 2025, p. 7
The forensic crisis that the country faces not only has to do with not knowing the identity of more than 52 thousand bodies that are in graves and specialized centers, but also with the loss of remains by authorities and the lack of protocols for the efficient Delivery to their families. Jovita Rodríguez has been waiting for her for more than a year since her daughter Lucila Fuentes’s body, who disappeared on a trip while accompanying her husband, in humps, State of Mexico, on September 11, 2017.
Although in 2023 the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR) notified the family that the State Prosecutor’s Office reported a body that would be Lucila’s, when coinciding genetically with the profiles of his brothers and Jovita’s, she has not been able to receive it by bureaucratic procedures and problems to find the remains in the common grave of the Huehuetoca pantheon.
Michel Cervantes, a lawyer for a strategic litigation in human rights – organization that accompanies the case – said that in addition to the FGR took to notify the family about genetic coincidence, since since 2022 He received a trade from the State Prosecutor’s Office with that information
Jovita had to investigate exactly where the case was.
Tracking the file, he learned that the investigation folder is in the Public Ministry of Huehuetoca
he explained in an interview. Indicated that 2024 was a year of Tangle of procedures, being chasing the agents of the Public Ministry to send trades that were really very simple
.
Finally, said the lawyer, on January 9, 2025, the exhumation of Lucila’s remains was scheduled and the authorities warned his family – Oldinaria de Iguala, Guerrero – that they would be given to their home the next day.
Mrs. Jovita prepared a funeral, cooked, put coffee, bread, etc.
Cervantes said.
He assured that the authorities did not give them a clear explanation about what was happening and three days later personnel from the funeral home in charge of Lucila’s transfer to tell him that they had already found the body.
However, given the distrust of the process, Lucila’s family requested a new genetic confronta to confirm that they will receive the body of their loved one, which is pending.
Cervantes stressed that these types of situations are not isolated cases. Unfortunately there have been some in which due to a very bad practice by several prosecutors in the country, they have improperly delivered remains that do not correspond to those who supposedly identified
he said.
He highlighted the wear and tear that this has been representing for Lucila’s family, which in addition to fighting to be given his body, demand justice, having been a possible victim of femicide.
