Mexico City began a project this week to exhume and identify thousands of bodies from an area of common graves in a municipal cemetery as part of a multi-agency strategy to deal with its growing list of people registered as disappeared.

The exhumation project is the largest of its kind ever attempted in Latin America, said Gerardo Cervantes Arroniz, director of the Institute of Expert Services and Forensic Sciences (ISPCF), which is part of the city’s judicial branch.

"We are facing a long-term project, a very long-term project," said Cervantes Arroniz, during a press conference Tuesday announcing the initiation of the work at the Panteon Civil de Dolores cemetery, which sits in a western district of the city.

Forensics and technical experts prepare to exhume human remains from a common

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