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 News from Around the Americas | March 2008 
3 Mexican Students Confirmed Killed in Colombia's Cross-Border Raid in Ecuador
 Associated Press
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Quito, Ecuador - Three Mexican students have been confirmed killed in Ecuador during a cross-border raid earlier this month by Colombian troops who were hunting a guerrilla leader, police and victims' relatives said Friday.
Five Mexicans - three men and two women - were at the camp near the border with Colombia during the raid, which killed 25 people including Raul Reyes, the public face of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
Dental records helped forensic experts identify the bodies of Mexicans Soren Ulises Aviles Angeles, 29, and Fernando Franco Delgado, 28, police morgue director Marcelo Jacome told The Associated Press.
At a news conference at a military hospital in Quito, Alvaro Gonzalez told reporters DNA testing confirmed that his son Juan Gonzalez del Castillo, 29, also was among the dead.
Parents of 30-year-old Veronica Velazquez Ramirez were still awaiting the results of forensic tests, and the fifth student, 26-year-old Lucia Morett Alvarez, was wounded but survived.
"We demand that the Mexican government ... energetically condemn the crime committed by the president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe," said Marcelo Franco, the father of Fernando Franco Delgado. "If the government stays quiet, when we arrive in Mexico City, we will create incredible pressure.
Back home, fellow students have described the victims as activists who sympathized with Latin America's radical left, which has gained some backing on college campuses in Mexico.
The raid sparked a diplomatic crisis that saw Ecuador and close ally Venezuela send troops to their borders with Colombia. But relations have been on the mend since a stiff handshake between the three nations' presidents at a Latin American summit a week ago. |
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