About 100 migrants, including children, have been kidnapped during their long trek to the United States — presumably by the dangerous drug cartel Los Zetas, according to a new report.
The migrants weren’t among the thousands who arrived in Mexico City on Monday, Arturo Peimbert, the ombudsman for the human- rights commission in Oaxaca, Mexico, told HuffPost Mexico.
Peimbert said the group was kidnapped in Puebla state while trying to reach the capital from Veracruz — where a bloody turf war has been unfolding between rival cartels Jalisco New Generation and Los Zetas.
He said the federal government has put “strong pressure” on transportation companies to not pick up migrants along the way — which forced them to walk through an unsafe area known as “the largest grave in the country, where hundreds of people have disappeared,” according to a translation by Britain’s Independent newspaper.
The abducted migrants were likely turned over to Los Zetas, Peimbert said.
The Zetas are “one of the most powerful and violent criminal organizations in Mexico,” according to information from the US State Department.
The group was formed by deserters from the Mexican Special Forces and has made a name for itself working as a security force and cocaine trafficker for the Gulf Cartel.
Zetas have been known to prey on migrant caravans and often ransom travelers unlucky enough to be caught up in their web, according to Al Jazeera.
In 2011, Zetas rounded up and executed 193 migrants fewer than 100 miles from the US-Mexico border in what came to be known as the San Fernando Massacre, according to Mexican newspaper Milenio.
In one instance, the gang marched 72 people at gunpoint to a farm and shot them in the back one by one, according to Al Jazeera. Just two people escaped with their lives.
As many as 20,000 migrants a year are kidnapped and ransomed by criminal gangs, according to human-rights group Amnesty International.
Three out of five women and girls are raped during migrant journeys, according to the group.
More than 200,000 people have been murdered by cartels in Mexico since 2006, according to Agence France-Presse.
Meanwhile Tuesday, the Jesus Martinez stadium in Mexico City was nearing its 6,000-person capacity as thousands of Central American migrants stopped there for a rest and a hot meal before continuing their journey to the US border.
Mexico City Mayor José Ramon Amieva said 4,500 migrants had arrived at the stadium since Sunday and officials expect as many as 5,500 at the site by Wednesday.
The caravan of thousands of migrants has spread out since embarking last month, with some groups traveling faster than others.
They are expected to regroup in Mexico’s capital, which sits more than 600 miles from the nearest US border crossing in McAllen, Texas. The caravan is traveling between 30 and 40 miles a day.
President Trump has seized on the caravan as a campaign issue in the days leading up to Tuesday’s midterm elections.
He has pledged to deploy 15,000 troops to the border, where there are already 2,100 National Guard troops and 7,000 US Customs and Border Patrol agents.
US Army soldiers and Border Patrol officers have already laid down roughly 1,000 feet of barbed-wire fencing along the Rio Grande separating the southwest US and northern Mexico, according to the Defense Department.
SOURCE: New York Post
