Mexican police on Friday discovered the bodies of three people related to a human rights activist who was killed last year in the volatile northern border state of Chihuahua.
The bodies of a sister and brother of Josefina Reyes and her sister-in-law were found in the desert outside Guadalupe Distrito Bravos, southeast of Ciudad Juarez, said Carlos Gonzalez, spokesman for the state prosecutor’s office.
The three had been missing since Feb. 7, when witnesses reported that armed men forced the trio from a vehicle.
Photo: Reuters
The bodies of Maria Magdalena Reyes Salazar, Elias Reyes Salazar and his wife, Luisa Ornelas, were found with messages alluding to organized crime, according to Gonzalez, who did not immediately release details.
Their bodies appear to have been buried, then dug up again and left on a road, as if someone wanted to call attention to their deaths.
The discovery led surviving relatives to demand justice, urging Mexican President Felipe Calderon to act with the same determination used to pursue the killers of Jaime Zapata, a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who was fatally shot in northern Mexico on Feb. 15.
The Mexican army on Wednesday detained alleged drug trafficker, Julian Zapata Espinoza, and two other men in connection with the shooting, which also wounded another ICE agent, Victor Avila.
“Just as they have solved the crime against Zapata, I want them to solve the crime against my siblings,” Claudia Reyes, a sister of the victims, told reporters at a protest site set up in front of the Senate in Mexico City.
The family said they will continue to protest for justice despite concern for their safety.
Congresswoman Leticia Quezada, an opposition party member who sat with the family during the news conference, said Calderon and other officials would be held responsible “if anything else happens to the Reyes Salazar family.”
Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International called on the Mexican government to provide protection for the remaining family members.
Josefina Reyes was slain a year ago in Ciudad Juarez. She had led protests against alleged abuses by Mexican soldiers in the Juarez Valley, which sits across from El Paso, Texas.
Last August, unknown assailants killed her brother Ruben. Earlier this month, the home of Reyes’ mother, Sara Salazar, was set on fire while she was protesting the crimes against her family.
“The Reyes Salazar family, since the death of Josefina in 2010, has been the victim of a brutal harassment, partly by the state and partly by criminality,” a spokesman for the family, Adrian Fuentes, told MVS Radio. “The demand for justice will not stop.”
The Reyes family’s case has led organizations such as Amnesty International to urge Mexico to protect the safety of human rights activists.
Ciudad Juarez has been the scene of bloody drug cartel turf battles that have killed more than 6,000 people the past two years.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number