The Mexican Government confirmed this Wednesday that among the 31 migrants kidnapped in the state of Tamaulipas, on the border with the United States, there are citizens of Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, Ecuador and Mexico.
The authorities learned of the incident on December 30, when armed men wearing balaclavas intercepted a passenger bus that was going from the northern city of Monterrey to Matamoros, on the border with Brownsville (Texas), according to the Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, Rosa Icela. Rodriguez.
“(It was) on the Reynosa-Matamoros highway at kilometer 6, passing the toll booth, forcing 31 of the 36 passengers who were traveling on the same (bus) to get off and board five vans,” said the secretary at the morning conference. of the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
“These are the facts, where people of various nationalities are identified: Venezuelans, Ecuadorians, Hondurans, Colombians and Mexicans,” he added.
Rodríguez commented that the Tamaulipas State Prosecutor’s Office “is leading the investigation with the support of the Government of Mexico” in conjunction with the Secretariats of Defense, Navy and Security, as well as the National Guard.
Among the actions carried out, he listed the monitoring of telephones to locate the people who participated in the kidnapping, the analysis of the videos left on the bus, and the use of canine pairs to track and search for the migrants.
“It must be said that this type of event occurred with one, two or three migrants, but this number in that area is atypical, it is not an issue that is occurring frequently, it is an issue, but we are confident that the operation The search will have results, hopefully sooner rather than later,” he said.
The kidnapping in Tamaulipas, one of the most dangerous states for migrants crossing Mexico, has revived memories of the San Fernando massacre in that state, where the Zetas cartel killed 72 Central and South Americans in August 2010.
The abduction of migrants also marked other points in northeastern Mexico in 2023, such as in Matehuala, where authorities reported last April the rescue of more than 100 migrants, while in May nearly 50 kidnapped people were registered.
President López Obrador promised to report “whatever can be said, because a certain secrecy is required, people’s lives are at stake, but progress is being made.”
The event occurs after December’s historic numbers of people seeking to enter the United States at the border with Mexico, where Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed last month the arrival of more than 2.2 million migrants. from January to November.
