Mexican authorities are desperately searching for 31 migrants from five Central and South American countries who were abducted at gunpoint by gangs on a bus heading to the US border over the weekend.
On Saturday, masked men brandishing guns stopped a bus on a highway in the city of Reynosa, Federal Security Secretary Rosa Ysela Rodríguez said.
The bus was heading from Monterrey to Matamoros, just across the border from Brownsville, Texas.
The armed men forcibly removed all 36 people from a bus operated by Senda and took 31 of them in five vehicles.
The reasons for the kidnappings are unclear, but it has become common for cartels to kidnap migrants and hold them for ransom.
Rodriguez said the abducted migrants were from Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras and Mexico.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro confirmed on Tuesday that four Colombians were among the prisoners.
Local reports said the passengers were headed to the border for a scheduled asylum hearing with U.S. officials.
Rodriguez said the Mexican National Guard, army and navy tried to track the migrants' cellphones, reviewed surveillance video from buses and combed the area by helicopter for signs of missing people. So far there are few clues.
“I want to find the victim's whereabouts as soon as possible,” Rodriguez said.
He noted that the number of migrants abducted on December 30 was “extraordinary” as gangs have recently been kidnapping people in small groups, sometimes from buses, and demanding ransom.
Migrants and human rights activists have warned of an escalating kidnapping crisis in the crime-ridden border region of Tamaulipas, particularly in Reynosa, a hotbed of rival gangs vying for control of the region. Holding up a signal.
Kidnappings are occurring frequently in Tamaulipas. In 2019, nearly 20 people were removed from buses in the area, never to be seen again.
In 2010, members of the notoriously ruthless Zetas drug cartel massacred 72 Central American migrants by forcing them off a bus near the city of San Fernando.
with post wire
