Fifty migrants and two drivers disappeared this Tuesday in the vicinity of Nuevo León, where they were traveling from San Luis Potosí, in a bus that was found abandoned in the municipality of Galeana, in the northern state. After the discovery of the vehicle, from the EvaTours company, the authorities of both States began an investigation that, so far, has resulted in the location of nine of the kidnapped foreigners, from Venezuela and Honduras. The men, between the ages of 18 and 35, were on the highway between Matehuala and Saltillo, at kilometer 73, where they were rescued by agents of the Civil Force.
The Secretary of Security of Nuevo León, Gerardo Palacios, confirmed on Tuesday afternoon the discovery of several of the disappeared persons, all safe, who in turn confirmed the place of the events and alleged that they had managed to escape from their captors in San Luis Potosí until reaching Nuevo León. “The National Guard bases his statement on satellite tracking that yields incontrovertible data,” he explained in relation to the location of the vehicle and the migrants. The rescued people were held captive at an address in Doctor Arroyo, in the State of Nuevo León, as specified by the San Luis Potosí Attorney General’s Office, according to the testimonies collected.
In addition, the institution has stated that they are combing the routes of the section of road where the bus supposedly disappeared, on the border with the northern State. And he has requested the support of the federal Migration Institute “so that migrants who enter the country with a transit permit can have accompaniment on their journey throughout Mexico.”
President López Obrador has referred to the event this Wednesday, during his daily morning conference. “Its working on that. We cannot say more for obvious reasons, but it is being worked on”, he declared. “Unfortunately, it appears that there are gangs that kidnap, for this reason, [hacemos] the appeal to the migrant brothers so that they do not allow themselves to be deceived, manipulated, by the traffickers, by the coyotes, by the smugglers”, he concluded.
This is the second kidnapping and ransom in the Matehuala area in just a month and a half. On April 6, the police located 35 missing migrants between San Luis Potosí and Guanajuato. At that time, 23 of the people rescued had rented a van, of which the trail was lost in the outskirts of the place where they were found, in circumstances very similar to those now reported. A month later, on May 5, the kidnapping of a group of Colombian migrants was reported in Sonora, en route to the United States, who were rescued shortly after.
These are the latest episodes of an incessant trickle that has worsened in the last year, especially in the border area with the northern country. The pressure cooker that de facto embodies migration management reached its height of tension at the end of March, with the fire in a center of the National Institute of Migration in Ciudad Juárez in which 40 migrants died and for which the commissioner is being tried , Francisco Garduño. But it is a crisis that has no sign of ending soon.
Just a week ago, the United States put an end to controversial Title 42, a health regulation recovered by Donald Trump under the pretext of the covid pandemic that allowed migrants who crossed the dividing line to be returned hot. Since its closure, the US authorities have reinforced the more than 3,000 kilometers of border with 24,000 agents and Mexico has temporarily closed 33 immigration stays, waiting for the National Human Rights Commission to inspect their conditions. These shelters accommodated more than 1,300 people. The sum of factors has deepened an already tragic situation, where the vulnerability of migrants serves as the perfect breeding ground for mafias that seek to take advantage of it.
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