BODY COUNT IN MEXICO MAY BE LOWER

`Mass Graves' Estimate Was 100

MEXICO CITY -- Families of missing people are reeling over recent
statements by the FBI and Mexican authorities that dozens of bodies
might not be buried at remote ranches near Ciudad Juarez.

After two weeks of digging at two of four ranches some officials
initially called possible mass grave sites that might hold as many as
100 bodies, remains of eight men have been unearthed and are being
studied by FBI forensics specialists in El Paso, Texas.

And with Mexican Attorney General Jorge Madrazo signaling that the
digging may end in two weeks, officials are now saying they're not
sure how many bodies they will discover. The total may be well below
original estimates.

Mexican and FBI sources at first suggested as many as 100 bodies might
be found -- victims of a long war between drug gangs over illicit
cocaine supply routes in Mexico said to be worth $10 billion a year.

A media crush ensued, dozens of FBI specialists were granted special
permits to work in Mexico, a special forensics lab was set up in El
Paso.

Buoyed by the official ruckus, families of the disappeared began
hoping authorities could finally close ugly chapters in their lives.

But it soon became clear that scores of bodies might not be buried at
the ranches after all.

``The families are calling me, wondering what is going on, and I can't
tell them a thing,'' said Jaime Hervelles, who directs an El Paso
group that has tracked nearly 200 unsolved border-area disappearances
and kidnappings since 1994.

``If the authorities would stay with it and dig up all the ranches
said to belong to drug traffickers, and all the abandoned wells around
Juarez, they might turn up 100 bodies. But that could take years.''

Agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, left on the sidelines by
the FBI, privately doubt the existence of burial sites with high
concentrations of drug-war victims.

``I wonder if people moved too quickly,'' said one Texas-based
official.

``Everyone is jumping to conclusions, and there is really nothing yet
to indicate drug-related burials at the scale they've
advertised.''