MEXICO CITY: Mexican security forces on Tuesday rescued 52 kidnapped migrants, mostly Guatemalans, who were being held in a house in the violent state of Tamaulipas near the US border.
The migrants had been held for several days in a house in the city of Reynosa, where they were found by a group of federal and state police, officials said.
The group was made up of 48 men from Guatemala, two from El Salvador and two more from Mexico, a press release from the state government said.
Mexico’s army earlier this month rescued 165 migrants kidnapped by a gunman in the same state, less than a mile
(1.5 km) from the US border.
It was the biggest single discovery of its kind during a bloody drug war that has killed an estimated 75,000 people since 2006.
Mexican cartels have moved into human smuggling in recent years, kidnapping migrants and extorting money from them or forcing the to carry drugs across the border. — Reuters