Abducted migrants released in Mexico

By James Blears

On Saturday, armed men stopped a bus on the highway between the Border cities of Reynosa and Matamoros in the State of Tamaulipas. Thirty-six people were forced off it and thirty-one of them were forced at gunpoint into five waiting cars. 

The migrants abducted are from Venezuela, Colombia, Honduras, Ecuador and Mexico. The Mexican Government launched an extensive search and rescue mission involving 650 police, troops and the National Guard.

This included the use of surveillance equipment, namely drones, tracker dogs and communications experts honing in on cellular phones. It`s not said how the migrants were rescued, but it is likely the kidnappers fled in the face of such a comprehensive operation rapidly closing in.  Their plan to extort ransom money from distraught relatives had backfired. 

On Monday another bus travelling to Matamoros was halted by gunmen who took away five people, later rescued by the National Guard. Two rival factions of the Gulf drug cartel are currently locked in a turf war throughout this troubled region.

Those saved can consider themselves lucky. In 2019 in this region, twenty-two people were seized off a bus. They were never seen again.  Nine years earlier, seventy-two Central and South American migrants were massacred, after refusing to work for the Zetas drug cartel.