In the early hours of May 5, the State Security Board of the State of sonorous informed through his social networks that he began with the work to locate ten people from Colombia who disappeared on the territory of the statewhen they tried to cross into the United States.
The families of the ten Colombians lost contact with them in the vicinity of San Luis Río Colorado, according to local authorities. The implementation of the search operations was based on a request from the Colombian Consulate in the country, which in turn was derived from a citizen complaint published by the organization 1800migrant.
This organization issued, on May 3, a mass kidnapping alert in Sonora due to the apparent deprivation of liberty of the group of migrants. Based on the information provided by a Colombian citizen in New York, they explained that “(at 11 in the morning of may 2) they were taken down after a military checkpoint before entering San Luis Río Colorado”. The complaint was filed by Christian Cortés, son of one of the disappeared.
The victims of this alleged kidnapping were identified as 18-year-old Esteban M., 28-year-old Omar R., 28-year-old Stiven S., 45-year-old Claudia M., 49-year-old Rosalba M., 52-year-old William M. , Carlos V., 52 years old, Sandra C., 53 years old, Oswaldo P., 55 years old, and Édgar P., 50 years old.
A detail that the organization placed special emphasis on was that Colombian citizens were traveling in a bus from the Mexican company Elitespecifically in the Select Service Unit 3435. “Coincidentally, a bus from this same company was involved in the kidnapping last week of more than 43 Ecuadorians,” the statement read.
The testimony of Christian Cortés stated that all the people apparently kidnapped they are relatives of yours and they were traveling in a bus “full of foreigners”.
At one point on the journey, when they were driving on the highway that leads to San Luis Río Colorado, the person who had helped them with the transfer and was waiting for them at the end of their bus journey told them that “the mafia had taken them down before the entrance of San Luis and they had stayed with them and the driver did not want to talk about it anymore, only two people got off the bus”.
The group of Colombian migrants fled their country for reasons of violence, since in Bogotá they were victims of threats against their integrity, apparently perpetrated by the group “The Aragua train”, originally from Venezuela.
Faced with this hostile atmosphere, the family decided to travel to the United States, where they intended to appear before the authorities to apply for asylum.
Christian accused before the organization that several authorities would have turned their backs on his request for help during the first days. For its part, 1800Migrante launched a call to the press in the United States, Mexico and Colombia to focus on this “new case of mass kidnapping in the state of Sonora” and demanded the intervention of the authorities to rescue the victims.
