(Mexico City) The 31 migrants kidnapped on Saturday by armed men in northern Mexico, on the border with the United States, “were released safe and sound,” Interior Minister Luisa Alcalde announced on Wednesday.
In her message on X, the minister thanked “the national guard and the armed forces” for this release.
The 31 migrants, including Venezuelans and Colombians, “are already in the hands of the authorities” for a “medical examination”, the spokesperson for the Mexican presidency, Jesus Ramirez, also indicated on X.
His message was accompanied by four photos of the suspected kidnapped migrants, including two children, one with a teddy bear.
The 31 migrants were kidnapped on Saturday when they were traveling on a bus in the northern state of Tamaulipas on the highway that connects the border towns of Reynosa and Matamoros.
This is one of the routes for migrants from Central or South America who want to try to cross into the United States.
“Most, a priori, are Venezuelans,” Mexican President André Manuel Lopez Obrador said in the morning during his daily press conference.
On Tuesday, his Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro mentioned the presence of “four Colombians” among those kidnapped.
Armed men stopped the bus, forcing its occupants to board five vans, according to authorities’ account Tuesday.
A total of 36 people were traveling on the bus. Five Mexicans were allowed by the kidnappers to continue on their way.
Migration along the more than 3,000 kilometers of border between Mexico and the United States is breaking records.
Between October 2022 and September 2023, more than 2.4 million land migrant interceptions were recorded in the United States, according to the US Border Patrol.
The border between the United States and Mexico has become “the most dangerous land migration route in the world,” with 686 people dead or missing, according to a September report from the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Mexico City Christmas week for a meeting with President Lopez Obrador on the topic of migration between the two countries.
The Mexican president mentioned “important agreements” after the meeting without further details.
In southern Mexico, a caravan of several thousand migrants announced that it was dispersing, after an agreement with the authorities.
At the end of this agreement, migrants will be able to request documents allowing them to legally cross Mexico.
The caravan numbered 6,800 migrants, according to the organizers, 1,500 according to President Lopez Obrador.