Dolls with severed limbs, decapitated heads and blank eyes can be seen all over the abandoned Isla de las Muñecas - the Island of the Dolls. The island, created as an artificial agricultural plot or chinampa, in the canals of Xochimilco, south of Mexico City, used to belong to a man called Julián Santana Barrera.
The story goes that Barrera found a little girl drowned under mysterious circumstances while he was not able to save her life. Near her dead body he found a floating doll, possibly belonging to the dead girl. He picked up the doll and hung it to a tree, as a way of showing respect to the spirit of the girl. That's when he started collecting the old broken bodies of dolls from the canals and rubbish tips, and hang them from branches and tree trunks to keep away evil spirits and appease the spirit of a dead girl he had found.
He then started believing that the dolls were possessed by the spirits of dead girls and that they would come to life every night and walk around the island. In 2001, Barrera was found drowned at exactly the same place he discovered the little girl 50 years earlier. Since then, visitors stared going to the island, often bringing their own dolls. The creepy dolls are today the sole inhabitants of Isla de las Muñecas.
SEE ALSO: More abandoned islands around the world // More abandoned places in Mexico // LIST OF ALL DESERTED PLACES
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