MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Gunmen stormed a hotel in central Mexico’s San Luis Potosi state on Tuesday and abducted about 20 foreigners believed to be mostly from Haiti and Venezuela. reported the state attorney general’s office.
The gunmen looted the building and took off with the guests’ registration diary, making it difficult to identify who was kidnapped at the Hotel Sol y Luna in Matehuala, about 195 kilometers north of the city. of San Luis Potosí, the regional capital. .
“We are trying to find their identities,” Arturo Garza Herrera, the state’s attorney general, said in a statement.
Authorities have launched an investigation and are trying to rescue the guests, Garza added.
The statement does not clarify whether the abducted Haitians and Venezuelans were migrants heading to the United States.
Many migrants face extreme dangers on their way to the United States, with kidnappings, extortion, rape and even murder. Some migrants are also recruited to work for drug cartels fighting for drug trafficking routes.
In June, a human rights group reported that some 3,300 migrants stranded in Mexico since January as a result of a U.S. border policy have been abducted, raped, trafficked or assaulted.
(Report by Noe Torres; Writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Dan Grebler)