Two arrested over murder of Mexico mother searching for son

Mexican police have arrested two men suspected of murdering a mother and son, who were killed while they searched for her other missing son, prosecutors said Thursday.

Maria del Carmen Morales was shot dead last week in Jalisco state along 26-year-old Jaime Daniel Ramirez Morales. Together, they had been searching for another son who went missing last year.

The 43-year-old mother belonged to the Guerreros Buscadores collective, a group that searches for missing relatives.

The group's discovery of bones, shoes and clothing at a suspected drug cartel training camp in Jalisco in March shocked Mexico.

Near midnight on April 23, the attackers opened fire on mother and son from a motorcycle near their home, investigators said, adding that Morales had been trying to defend her son when she was targeted.

The prosecutor's office in the western Jalisco state named the alleged murderers as Juan Manuel N., 27, and Jose Luis N., 24, and said they were suspected of links to a dozen other killings.

The search group's grisly find at the cartel training camp in Jalisco shone a spotlight on forced recruitment and other tactics employed by criminal gangs in Mexico, where more than 120,000 people are missing.

Disappearances soared after the government declared war on drug trafficking groups in 2006.

Around 480,000 people have been murdered in a spiral of violence since then.