Mexican authorities rescue 31 migrants abducted near US border, migrants found safe
Mexican authorities rescued 31 migrants who were abducted near the U.S. border over the weekend, officials said on Wednesday.
Mexican Interior Minister Luisa Alcalde said the migrants were "rescued safely" in a post on X, and thanked "state authorities, the national guard and the armed forces."
Jesús Ramírez Cuevas, a spokesperson for the Mexican president’s office, confirmed that the 31 migrants who were kidnapped on Saturday in the northern town of Tamaulipas had been rescued.
"They are already in the hands of the authorities and are undergoing the appropriate medical examinations," he wrote in a post on X.
Photos attached to the spokesman's post showed several of the migrants, including woman and children. A child can be seen holding a stuffed animal in one of the photos.
How the 31 migrants were abducted
Federal Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez said armed and masked men stopped the migrants bus on Saturday. They made all 36 people on board get off, and then kidnapped 31 of them. The kidnapped migrants were driven away in five cars.
The kidnapped migrants were from Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras and Mexico and on their way to Matamoros.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro confirmed in a post on X, that four of the migrants on board were Colombian. Honduran Foreign Minister Enrique Reina also said that six Hondurans were among the group, including three teenage girls.
Migrants held for ransom
The kidnapping comes as asylum seekers and human rights activists have been warning about an escalating kidnapping crisis in the area which is by the U.S. border, Reuters reported.
Organized crime groups which control the border area regularly kidnap migrants and hold them for ransom.
Rodriguez called this abduction "unusual" because so many migrants had been taking, but it's not uncommon for migrants to be kidnapped in Mexico. Typically, abductors will force migrants off of bus, and demand that they beg their relatives to send ransom money, Reuters reported.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.