Seventy-two people found murdered on a ranch in northeast Mexico are believed to have been migrants bound for the US, officials said, in one of the most horrific examples of Mexican violence in years.
Mexican marines discovered the bodies of 58 men and 14 women after a clash with a suspected drug cartel in Tamaulipas state, which borders the US state of Texas, in which one marine and three gunmen were killed, the military said on Wednesday.
An injured Ecuadoran man claiming to be the sole survivor of the massacre and who alerted the military to the killings has been placed under federal protection, a navy source told reporters, requesting anonymity.
PHOTO: EPA
The man told police the group had been kidnapped and killed by members of an armed gang heavily involved in the drug trade and organized crime and known for extorting migrants.
“Preliminary unconfirmed reports suggest [the victims] could have been immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador and Brazil,” Alejandro Poire, a Mexican security official, told a news conference.
At least four Brazilians were among the dead and diplomats whose nationals could be among the victims were traveling to the scene, a Brazilian foreign ministry official said.
If the victims turn out to be undocumented migrants, the case “will turn into an emblem of the capacity or incapacity of Mexican officials to face up” to migrant abuses, Amnesty International Mexico director Alberto Herrera said.
“The level of impunity in this country is scandalous,” he added.
Around half a million clandestine migrants cross Mexico each year, mostly from Central America, according to Mexico’s Human Rights Commission.
About 10,000 undocumented migrants were abducted in Mexico over six months from September 2008 to February last year, the commission reported last year.
According to a navy spokesman, the Ecuadoran survivor accused the Zetas drug gang — who are often blamed for migrant killings and abductions — of committing the massacre.
The survivor, 18-year-old farmer Luis Freddy Lala Pomavilla, paid so-called “coyote” human traffickers to smuggle him across Mexico’s northern border into the US.
He said the gunmen offered to pay the migrants US$500 a month to work as hitmen for them and began shooting them when they refused, according to a spokesman for the state prosecutor’s office, who declined to be named.
The Zetas are comprised of Mexican military deserters and corrupt former police officers.
Pomavilla had led security forces to the ranch near San Fernando after pleading for help at a roadside checkpoint, officials said.
Marines said they took fire as they approached the ranch with ground and air support.
They captured one “underage suspect,” but the rest of the surviving gunmen escaped.
The grisly discovery was the latest mass dumping of bodies in recent months, which authorities blame on drug gangs as the death toll spirals in Mexico’s drug wars.
More than 28,000 people have died since 2006, when President Felipe Calderon began deploying some 50,000 troops to tackle organized crime.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese