Cannibalism was practiced according to testimonies of survivors from the Teuchitlán ranch

More than a week has passed since the discovery of the Izaguirre extermination ranch. Now, supposed survivors of forced recruitment have decided to reveal the violent practices that took place inside the property.

Three of these testimonies were revealed to Milenio Televisión and a fourth, from a woman, was told to the leader of the collective, Indira Navarro. This is what was revealed.

The horror inside the Izaguirre ranch

In an interview for Milenio, men whose identities were not revealed recounted some atrocities they had to commit to stay alive.

The first of them recounted that upon his arrival, he was forced to undress. Those who refused or began to ask questions were killed instantly.

Those who chose to remain silent were recorded in a notebook and assigned a nickname, tasks, and resources.

The accounts indicate that the ranch was divided into different sections. A warehouse of about 389 square meters (4,187 square feet) served as a dormitory and gym.

"We slept in a fetal position, very close to each other, because people were taken away, but new people arrived almost daily"

stated a young man who only spent two weeks at the Izaguirre ranch.

Another survivor commented that they were constantly beaten with sticks or wooden boards.

"Every day they hit us for anything, that's how they kept us scared. From the moment we arrived, the first thing they do is beat you with boards (sic)".

During the day, they were subjected to tests they had to pass if they wanted to stay alive.

"There's not a day I don't think about it and it doesn't torment me. But at that moment, things were done to stay alive. Those days are only when they teach you to shoot with an AK-47 and a handgun"

confessed another survivor.

A third individual revealed that surviving the training was just the first test. The graduates, he noted, were sent to fight for territories.

"Thank God I finished the training by fighting, by force, with threats and everything. From there, they send you to Zacatecas and it's not true that there are three stages, there's only one stage.

If you win three consecutive territories, you're promoted to command. Command means you're in charge of a group of seven, eight, or ten people"

he explained.

After their "initiation", the survivors are presented to the "high command". It is then that they are sent to another part of the country.

"Once you come down from there, they distribute you to the places they're going to send you, Zacatecas, Nayarit, Guanajuato, Michoacán, Guerrero, or Guadalajara"

he added.

One of the most brutal practices

In May 2019, Noticias Telemundo published a report that tells the story of a survivor. A man who allegedly spent three months in a training camp of the Jalisco Cartel (CJNG) and lived to tell about it.

According to this testimony, eating human flesh is one of the first tests. The territory bosses and those in charge of the "narco schools" subject the newcomers to do it. Within the CJNG, it's known as "the baptism".

This "test" consists of forcing all the trainees to dismember the body of a person. In most cases, they are people who didn't manage to advance other stages. They are then forced to eat a part of it, and if they refuse, they are killed.

A similar account was exposed in 2017 when a group of about a dozen men were detained and identified as members of the CJNG.

Among them were two teenagers aged 16 and 17. They are the ones who narrated to the authorities the torture they inflicted on a man and how they later had to eat him.

The statement was made in the context of the discovery of several "narco schools" in the mountainous part of Navajas, Tala.

Eduardo Almaguer Ramírez, then Jalisco's attorney general, revealed that in most of those areas human remains were found.