Crime & Justice

Mexico’s president confirms kidnapping of 31 migrants at US border

Mexico City, Jan 2 (EFE).- An armed group kidnapped at least 31 migrants, mostly Venezuelans, while they were on a truck last Saturday in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, which borders the United States, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirmed Tuesday.

“It is known that it is a truck with 30 or 31 migrants who were taken, they left five migrants and then they took the others, but the search is already underway from the first moments,” the president explained in statements to the media after finishing his morning conference in the southern state of Tabasco.

López Obrador confirmed that the Secretariat of Security and Civilian Protection is investigating the case but stressed that it is still unknown which group carried out the kidnapping and what their motives were.

The Mexican governor referred to national press reports indicating that the kidnapping of the foreigners occurred on Saturday on the Reynosa-Matamoros highway, however the governor of Tamaulipas, Américo Villarreal did not confirm the kidnapping until Monday.

According to reports, the detained migrants are mostly Venezuelans. They were traveling from the northern city of Monterrey to Matamoros, on the border with Brownsville, Texas, to attend their appointment for humanitarian asylum in the United States.

Meanwhile, the head of the Secretariat of Security and Civilian Protection in Tamaulipas, Jorge Cuellar, explained in an interview to the broadcast news television channel “Foro TV” that after the kidnapping, the bus was escorted to the Matamoros headquarters by military personnel both National Guard and State Guard, to carry out the appropriate investigations.

Likewise, the spokesman for the Tamaulipas Security Department reported on social media that, on Monday night, they found five of the 31 kidnapped migrants who were traveling in a vehicle on the Monterrey-Matamoros highway with two of the people who had intercepted them on the bus.

“The National Institute of Migration assistance was requested to transfer the people to migration offices,” Cuellar said to EFE.

The event follows the recording in December of historic numbers of people attempting to enter the United States at the border with Mexico.

In November, Customs and Border Protection confirmed the arrival of over 2.2 million migrants from January to November. EFE

csr/dgp/ics

Related Articles

Back to top button