Ciudad Juárez became infamous for a wave of attacks beginning in the 1990s that left hundreds of women dead over the course of a decade.

International attention moved on, but the killings have continued, with a second wave even larger than the first. Even as overall violence here declines, new clusters of slain women are continually being discovered.

Roughly 60 women and girls have been killed here so far this year; at least 100 have been reported missing over the past two years. And though the death toll for women so far this year is on track to fall below the high of 304 in 2010, state officials say there have already been more women killed in 2012 than in any year of the earlier so-called femicide era.

This time, though, the response has been underwhelming. “People haven’t reacted with the same force as before,” said Gustavo de la Rosa, a human rights investigator for Chihuahua State. “They think it’s natural.”

Mexican authorities have made promises to prioritize cases like these for years, and in the wake of international pressure, prosecutors now argue that more of the killings are being solved. But arrests and convictions are exceedingly rare. For the victims found in the mass grave in the Juárez Valley, even the most basic details were still a mystery months later: forensic teams said they were not even sure how many women were buried there.