The Minister of the Interior Luisa María Alcalde reported this Wednesday on the rescue of the 31 migrants kidnapped on December 30 in Tamaulipas. Without giving further details, the mayor posted a message on his Twitter account – now X – reporting the result. “Governor Américo Villareal has just informed us that the 31 migrants kidnapped in Tamaulipas have been safely rescued. Thank you to the state authorities, the National Guard and the Armed Forces.”
The abduction of the migrants has once again brought into focus the migrant route through the Gulf of Mexico, the route of terror, witness to the greatest atrocities against migrants in the country, such as the San Fernando massacre in 2010 and 2011. On Saturday afternoon On December 30, an armed group aboard five vans intercepted the bus in which they were traveling. The criminals took most of them and released only five, apart from the drivers who alerted the authorities. This Wednesday, the Minister of Federal Security, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, pointed out that among those kidnapped were “Venezuelan, Ecuadorian, Honduran, Colombian and Mexican” citizens.
Little is known about what happened to the 31 who were lost at a complicated border and left under the protection of criminal groups that see business opportunities and goods in migrants. Other than their journey, the location where they were held captive, the reason for the kidnapping is unknown – why 31 were kidnapped but the other five were not – and the routes their captors used in their escape are unknown. “It must be said that such events have occurred in one, two or three migrants, but this number is atypical in this area.” “It is not a problem that occurs frequently,” assured Rodríguez this Wednesday.
Some of the migrants rescued this Wednesday in Tamaulipas can be seen in an image shared on social networks.
The official explained that in these days “several actions have been carried out, including telephone surveillance, to locate the people involved and find those responsible for this crime.” “Also analyzing the videos left on the bus and monitoring the routes along which the migrants were transported. Likewise, tracking and search operations are being carried out at various locations using canine binomials,” he added. Rodríguez did not explain whether the rescue of five Venezuelan migrants on Monday in the same area was related to the case of the 31.
The dynamics of crime in the region shows the use of a variety of routes that originate from the highway that connects Monterrey to the border, starting in municipalities such as General Bravo or Doctor Coss. The goals are diverse. Many go to Matamoros, others to Reynosa and others to Nuevo Laredo. The communities that lie between these cities, all close to the Rio Grande, are also among the preferences of the mafia, which is always involved in the migrant journey, through agreements or the use of brute force for those who try to get up to arrive on your own.
This is the case, for example, of the group of migrants murdered in Camargo, between Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo, in January 2021. The migrants were traveling with their guides, the traffickers who were taking them to the other side of the river, when state police attacked them with bullets. They all died, there were 19. Beyond the police officers' motives, the reconstruction of the migrant journey during last year's trial, which ended with the conviction of 12 agents, showed the path they took: San Luis Potosí, Monterrey and the Highway to Reynosa, from General Bravo, before taking one of the many gaps that cross the border between Nuevo León and Tamaulipas, up to the border.
San Luis Potosí and its northern communities also appear as a red dot on the mafia map. In May, criminal groups kidnapped fifty migrants on the so-called Route of Terror near Matehuala, a logistical hub for criminal groups always protected by institutional power: the mayor of Matehuala has been imprisoned since November for improper exercise of public service. amid a scandal surrounding a series of audio recordings in which he allegedly negotiates with criminal groups in the area.
The mass abduction of migrants, as in the case of Matehuala or now in Tamaulipas, is not exceptional, despite what Minister Rodríguez has said. In Matehuala itself, authorities rescued 123 people in November who had been left on the road in the back of a caravan. The migrants alerted themselves to their situation by shouting from inside the vehicle, which attracted the attention of travelers passing through the area. The same thing happens in Tamaulipas. In 2019, for example, an armed group kidnapped 22 migrants from a bus traveling on the highway between San Fernando and Reynosa.
In any case, the problem goes beyond the adjective, namely the number of migrants kidnapped at any given time. Whether these are mass kidnappings or not, the seriousness of the situation on the Gulf migrant route, one of the busiest in the country, is not being addressed. Businessmen, religious people and human rights defenders point out that violence against the migrant population on the route is common and kidnappings are common. In statements to the newspaper Milenio, Francisco Gallardo López, from the diocese of Matamoros, points out that there have been many cases in the last month and that the mafia receives on average between 10 and 15 migrants per day.
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