2 of 4 persons kidnapped by gunmen in Mexico found dead

Two of four Americans kidnapped by gunmen on Friday after they drove into north-eastern Mexico have been found dead, and the two survivors have returned to the United States, US and Mexican officials said on Tuesday.

The survivors and the two bodies were discovered by Mexican security forces on Tuesday morning in a wood cabin southeast of the border city of Matamoros, said Americo Villarreal, Governor of Tamaulipas, the state the four crossed into from Texas.

Authorities are still investigating how the two Americans died, and one Mexican official said the most likely explanation for the group’s abduction was that they were mistaken for someone else.

One of the two surviving Americans suffered a gunshot wound to his leg that was not life-threatening, while the other, a woman, was not injured, Villarreal told a news conference.

A Mexican woman, 33, also died during the kidnapping ordeal, apparently from a stray bullet, he said.

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see activity by Colombian illegal armed groups, including the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas and FARC dissidents who reject a 2016 peace deal with the state, as well as criminal gangs who carry out drug trafficking and illegal mining, according to security sources.

Some 29,000 Indigenous Awa people live along the border and are subject to killings, forced displacement, land mines and recruitment of minors, among other ills, by armed groups, Colombia’s ombudsman said.

“The possibility of car - rying out their operations along a porous border – with gaps in state presence – favours the interests of illegal groups,” Colombia’s Ombudsman, Carlos Camargo said.

Armed groups hide arms and combatants on the Ecuadorean side of the border, Camargo added.

Some seven or eight Awa minors are recruited each month, Camargo said, adding that 14 Indigenous community members were reported murdered last year, while 10,000 were subject to forced displacement or confinement.

(Excerpt from Reuters)