Mexico confirms kidnapping of 31 migrants, most of them Venezuelans, in a state bordering the US.

First modification: 02/01/2024 – 22:51

3 min

At least 31 migrants, mostly Venezuelans, remain kidnapped in Mexico. The group was kidnapped while traveling last Saturday in a truck in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, bordering the United States, the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, confirmed this Tuesday, January 2.

“It is known that it is a truck with 30 or 31 migrants who were unloaded, they left five, they took the other migrants, but the search is already being carried out from the first moments,” explained the president.

The group of migrants, who were trying to reach the border with the United States, were traveling on a bus from the Senda company on the Reynosa-Matamoros highway, when they were intercepted by unknown armed men, probably linked to the cartels that dispute the territories of drug and human trafficking.

They all traveled from Monterrey to Matamoros, on the border with Brownsville, Texas, to attend their humanitarian asylum appointment in the United States.. The group of migrants is made up mostly of Venezuelans, but also includes Hondurans, Mexicans and Colombians.

After the kidnapping, two men fled on foot when they ran into the National Guard at kilometer 30 of the Reynosa-Matamoros highway, leaving five Venezuelan migrants inside a vehicle.

The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, confirmed the kidnapping this Tuesday, January 2, three days after it occurred, without offering further details.

An increasingly common practice

In 2023, there were record numbers of people trying to reach the United States through the Mexican border, with 2.2 million migrants in this situation, and the increase has not been unrelated to irregular groups, which have increased kidnappings. in exchange for ransoms that they charge to the families of the victims.

A documentary made by Reuters last year documented the practice, consistent with a pattern of kidnapping and sometimes sexual assault by the region's powerful drug cartels.

Data from the consulting firm InSight Crime indicate that the kidnapping of migrants moves close to 20 million dollars each year in Mexico.

But not all cases are resolved with economic transactions. In 2019, a bus with 22 migrants on board was kidnapped while traveling on the San Fernando-Reynosa federal highway, and the whereabouts of the victims remain unknown.

Another motivation for such practices is to prevent migrants from ending up reinforcing rival cartels, which is why there have been cases in which detention occurs with the aim of eliminating them.

One of the most remembered related events in Mexico is the San Fernando massacre, in Tamaulipas.

In August 2010, a total of 72 migrants were murdered in San Fernando, Tamaulipas by organized crime for refusing to join their ranks. Justice determined that the Los Zetas cartel was the author of these events.

Of the 72 people, 58 were men and 14 women, from Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and India.

With EFE and Reuters