The Ibero-American Commission on Human Rights for the Development of the Americas (CIDHPDA), in the voice of its Commissioner for Latin America and the Caribbean, Víctor Hugo Gutiérrez Yáñez, considers of utmost importance to protect the integrity of thousands of Latin Americans who have fallen into the hands of organized crime to be extorted or deprived of their freedom under death threats. Given this situation it is urgent that the Mexican State, headed by Mr. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, does not fail to guarantee human life by certifying routes to the north of Mexico and putting the National Guard to work in the bus terminals; also, panic buttons must be installed to stop kidnappings.
On Saturday, December 30, after 7:00 pm, an armed commando intercepted a passenger bus on the Monterey-Matamoros route and kidnapped 31 migrants. Fortunately, they were rescued safe and sound this Wednesday thanks to the National Guard and the armed forces, as announced on her X (formerly Twitter) account, the Secretary of the Interior, Luisa Alcalde. However, the efforts of the federal and state governments are not enough to stop these types of crimes, which have been a constant in the same region.
The kidnapping of migrants is the modus operandi of organized crime to recruit people to serve as hired assassins or as members of their criminal groups. Unfortunately, this situation has been worsening for more than a decade. In 2010, the year of the first massacre in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, in which 72 people of different nationalities were executed, the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) warned in a report about the increase in this crime.
According to the National Migration Institute, more than 11,000 people were victims of trafficking and 523 of kidnapping in 2021. For its part, the Attorney General's Office (FGR) registered 494 investigation files for the crime of migrant smuggling and seven for kidnapping of foreigners, which means an increase of 503% compared to the figures for 2020, where 164 victims of smuggling were reported.
During 2022, according to the Ministry of the Interior (Segob), there were 11,091 migrants who reported having been victims of a crime, while in 2023 there were 569 complaints, a lower figure than in 2022; however, specialists in the field point out two reasons that make migrants desist from filing a complaint: In 2023, the most frequent crime against this population was smuggling, with 245 cases, a 30% decrease from the 352 cases reported in 2022; followed by robbery with 132 cases, a figure below the 747 victims of the previous year.
The commissioner president of the CIDHPDA demanded to the Mexican Government that elements of the National Guard be inside the buses and monitor the transfer of people heading to the northern border. Likewise, Gutiérrez Yáñez added that the migration policy of the current administration should pay special attention to the wellbeing of children, adolescents, the elderly and pregnant women, as stated in the international protocols of the United Nations.
Gutiérrez Yáñez stressed that this migratory phenomenon has overwhelmed the current administration, which has not known how to generate strategies to meet the demand of thousands of people trying to reach the border with the United States: "It is not possible for the Mexican government to demand care for Mexican migrants when its government does not have the capacity to guarantee the lives of Latin American brothers and sisters," he concluded.