New clues about the chill that shook Mexico this weekend are slowly coming to light when authorities found 19 charred bodies in the border state of Tamaulipas.
The state prosecutor’s office took DNA samples from the victims, who were located cremated on Saturday, and is now collaborating with Guatemalan authorities to identify them, according to Luis Felipe Rodríguez, spokesman for Security of the state, in the news agency Efe.
Rodriguez mentioned that it is 16 men, one woman and two the sex could not be determined by the state of the remains.
“From a precise, objective and legal point of view, the only thing that can prove the identity of these people is the DNA and referenced or compared to that of a relative,” he said.
However, relatives of migrants from Guatemala they said they believe 13 of the 19 charred bodies are from their loved ones. One of them could be Marvin Thomas, A young man from 22 years who played on a Guatemala third division team.
For his sister Maribel Tomàs, the situation “is very difficult”. He noted that he and 12 other people left Comitancillo, a very poor community in Guatemala, guided by a coyote they had hired.
Thomas asked for help to bring the body back to his country and bury it.
Osmar Miranda, A young man from 19 years, May be another of the victims. His father, Jorge Miranda, says he was only looking for a job that would lift him out of poverty.
Ramiro Coronat told The Associated Press that his nephew, 31-year-old Adam Coronado, had left St. Mark’s Province for the United States along with other migrants about two weeks ago. On Thursday they lost contact with them.
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“It was the first time I went [a Estados Unidos]. He said that he wanted a better life situation for him and his family“, Crowned assured.
The National Migration Institute of Mexico stated that it was working with foreign consulates in Mexico but that the bodies were so damaged which could not be identified immediately.
The Guatemalan Foreign Ministry wrote in a press release that “the Mexican authorities are in the testing phase for their identification, and for this reason they cannot confirm their identities at this time.”
But Mario Gálvez, a deputy representing San Marcos, wrote on his social media that among the missing migrants were 10 men and three women.
“We have contacted the relatives, they say the bodies found are from their relatives, they have information that this group was,” Gálvez wrote, “we have asked the Chancellery to help the families with the repatriation of the bodies.”
“They do not find development opportunities in their hometowns, which have historically been completely abandoned by the Government,” Gálvez wrote, “the dream of our children and youth has become to come to the United States,” he added.
Camargo, a disputed territory
This crime took place in the municipality of Camargo, Tamaulipas, near the border, a territory in dispute for years over the Northeast and Gulf cartels, making it a dangerous route for migrants.
The Tamaulipas Attorney General’s Office said Saturday it located the charred bodies in several vehicles in the town of Santa Anita, about 60 miles from McAllen, Texas, near Nuevo Leon.
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One person alerted the Secretary of Public Security that there was a vehicle set on fire in a breach in the village of Santa Anita, according to the official text. Following the complaint, state police moved to the scene, where they located two charred vehicles, as well as remains of people.
“In one of the vans were two bodies in the cockpit, another body on one side of the driver’s side door, one more on the side of the co-pilot’s door and 15 in the vehicle box.” , said the state prosecutor’s office.
People died for gun projectiles and then caught fire, According to the first investigations of the prosecution. Although she clarified that so far no caps have been located in the area, so one of the lines to follow is that the events may have taken place in a different place than the finding.
Camargo is an important point of drug and migrant trafficking. Authorities said three were found rifles in the van where the bodies were stacked. Also found were the molten remains that appear to be from cellular.
This tragedy revives the memory of the massacre of 72 migrants occurred in 2010 in the same state, when members of the Zetas cartel stopped two trucks carrying dozens of migrants, mostly Central Americans, and took them to a ranch in the Tamaulipas town of San Fernando. After the migrants refused to work for the cartel, they blindfolded them, tied them to the ground and shot them dead.
In January 2020, 21 bodies were found, mostly burned, in several vehicles near the neighboring town of Ciutat Mier. Days later, the Mexican army killed 11 alleged gunmen in the area.
With information from Efe and AP.