Passing Through Mexico, Kidnappers Pile Misery on Central Americans Fleeing Violence Nina Lakhani - The Guardian
go to original February 21, 2017

Almost a thousand people enter Mexico daily, heading for the US. Some never make it – they are kidnapped, imprisoned or killed along the way. (The Guardian)

Most migrants passing through Mexico are Central American refugees fleeing violence and poverty. And during their passage to the US, they are more likely to become victims of crime: migrants are routinely targeted by bandits and kidnappers – often working hand in glove with members of the security forces.

A one-off study by Mexico’s National Commission of Human Rights suggested that in 2008-09, an average of 1,600 migrants were kidnapped each month. Anecdotal evidence from migrants and activists suggests that since then, the problem has only grown worse.

Migrant-kidnapping on an industrial scale was pioneered as a lucrative sideline by the Zetas, when the group, which was founded by army special forces defectors, split with their former employers, the Gulf cartel.

The Zetas were responsible for some of Mexico’s most notorious abductions, including two massacres in 2010 and 2011 in which at least 265 migrants were kidnapped from buses, killed and buried in mass graves in the northern state of Tamaulipas.

Local police were involved in both cases, and according to Professor Rodolfo Casillas, a migration scholar at the Latin American Social Science Institute (Flacso), corrupt officials continue to play a central role in migrant kidnappings.

Despite this, the US has funneled tens of millions of dollars to Mexican security forces to beef up immigration checkpoints and stop Central Americans reaching the US.

“Immigration and security agents work so efficiently to detain hundreds of thousands of migrants, yet rarely find the kidnappers operating in the same areas,” said Casillas. “The evidence of direct and indirect collaboration is indisputable.”

Read the rest at The Guardian

Related: How the United States' Spat with Mexico Will Crush Central American Refugees (Amnesty International)

Related: Trump Proves No Damper for Immigrants Crossing from Mexico (TRT World')

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