‘More Than 120 Bodies’ Under the Water, Tips Say: 100 Mothers and Divers Search a Dam South of Nogales, Sonora — Among Them a 67-Year-Old Who Comes From Tucson Every Week
More than 100 madres buscadoras, mothers searching for missing relatives, spent Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026, combing the Comaquito dam in Ímuris, Sonora, south of Nogales, Sonora, and Nogales, Arizona. They went because of anonymous tips that bodies lie underwater. Divers with drones and an underwater scanner found nothing, El Imparcial and INFOSON reported. One of the searchers was María López, 67. El Imparcial reported that she travels from Tucson, Arizona, every Saturday to look for her son.
‘More than 120 bodies,’ the tips say
Ramona Guadalupe Ayala Ortiz leads the Nogales collective Buscando Corazones and organized the search. She told INFOSON that the anonymous reports mostly pointed to the dam. “There is talk of more than 120 bodies sunk in the water,” she said. She called the region “the epicenter of a conflict, a war between mafias” a few years ago. El Imparcial put the collectives’ estimate at “at least 100” people. INFOSON stressed that the figure has not been confirmed by any find.
INFOSON reported that people in the border region see the dam as a place where gunmen dump victims of fighting between factions of the Sinaloa Cartel. According to INFOSON, those factions fight over routes for moving migrants, drugs and weapons to and from the United States. Ímuris sits where Federal Highways 2 and 15 meet, on the main route north to Arizona.
Why the divers came up empty
Four divers from the Hermosillo fire department searched the dam’s western side. Ayala Ortiz said one tipped spot, under some pillars, could not be checked because machinery there put the divers at risk. Another was too deep for their equipment. Recent rains had raised the water, El Imparcial reported. INFOSON’s two reports put the reservoir’s deepest points at 50 to 59 meters (164 to 194 feet). State and federal search commissions, state investigators, police and soldiers also took part. The collectives plan a second search with specialized equipment, with help from Sonora’s search commission.
A mother from Tucson
López has had three heart attacks, El Imparcial reported, and she still makes the trip every week with her daughter and granddaughter. Her son, Zayed Lennin López Sodari, an electrician who ran an Oxxo store with his wife in Nogales’ La Mesa neighborhood, disappeared on June 15. The family has no leads. They told the paper they are not looking for anyone to blame and only want to find him.
For travel and security news on the crossing, see our Nogales safety page.
Sources
- El Imparcial (Manuel Jiménez), “Culmina mega jornada de búsqueda en presa Comaquito de Ímuris,” Oct. 10, 2026
- El Imparcial (Manuel Jiménez), “Una madre de 67 años que ha sufrido tres infartos viaja cada sábado desde Tucson para buscar a su hijo desaparecido en Nogales,” Oct. 10, 2026
- INFOSON, “Madres buscan 120 cuerpos sumergidos en presa de Sonora, víctimas de la guerra entre narcos en la frontera,” Oct. 11, 2026
- INFOSON, “Concluye sin hallazgos búsqueda de desaparecidos en presa El Comaquito de Ímuris,” Oct. 12, 2026
- Photos: Manuel Jiménez, via El Imparcial
Reported Oct. 12, 2026, from El Imparcial and INFOSON. Reports differ slightly: El Imparcial and INFOSON’s Oct. 12 report say 10 collectives took part, and INFOSON’s Oct. 11 report says more than 11. The body counts come from anonymous tips passed on by search collectives. Authorities have not confirmed them, and no remains were found during the Oct. 10 search. The Narco Blog did not independently verify these accounts.