A citizens collective in neighboring Sonora, Mexico, found 19 hidden graves during one day of searching last week. It's one of several sites they've found this week, as their efforts continue despite the ongoing pandemic.

About 20 people with the group Madres Buscadoras de Sonora, or Sonora’s Searching Mothers, uncovered the grave sites in the coastal municipality of Guaymas on Wednesday.

They found about 30 bodies during the day’s search, with the burned remains of at least 10 bodies in one of the graves, said Ceci Patricia Flores, who founded the group nearly two years ago after her own son, Marco Antonio, went missing.

She said finding the remains is devastating.

"It's really painful, because that's where people lose hope. They realize they are never going to find the person they are looking for alive," she said. "But I would tell anyone whose loved on is missing, you have to fight, you have to search. The families are the only hope of ever finding their loved ones."

She said she would like for state and federal leaders to do more to uncover these hidden graves and recover the remains of the missing. Unfortunately, it's groups like hers that have to do the work and find the resources. Across the country, there are more than 130 such groups.

Flores estimates her group has uncovered about 300 human remains since 2019.