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Migrants Tell of Mexican Mass Kidnapping
 Agence France-Presse
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December 23, 2010
Oaxaca - A Honduran man who witnessed an alleged mass kidnapping in southern Mexico described the chaos during the incident, just as authorities cast doubt on whether the crime took place.
El Salvador's foreign ministry and two heads of Roman Catholic shelters, all citing witnesses, said gunmen kidnapped scores of migrants after robbing a freight train carrying migrants in the southern state of Oaxaca late on December 16.
Mexico's interior ministry initially dismissed the claims as "unsubstantiated". But on Wednesday, it flew a group of Hondurans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans to Mexico City to provide details of their alleged ordeal to federal prosecutors.
The National Institute of Migration (INM) gave the migrants humanitarian visas to allow them temporarily stay in Mexico, an interior ministry spokesperson said.
Alejandro, a middle-aged Honduran who said he was aboard the train with his 23-year-old son, said in a telephone interview from a Catholic shelter in the town of Ixtepec in Oaxaca state that he had been warned criminals often preyed on migrants.
"The train stopped suddenly and we heard cries and shots," said Alejandro, who only gave his first name. "A lot of us fled into the countryside."
Contact lost
Mexican drug and human traffickers have a history of capturing illegal migrants, at times forcing the women into prostitution and men into low-level criminal jobs.
Alejandro said he did not see the armed men because it was too dark, but he jumped from the train as soon as he heard the commotion. In the chaos, he lost contact with his son.
"I didn't look back. I just wanted to save my life, and I hid in the bushes," he said.
Alejandro later returned to the railroad and met other migrants who escaped the train.
"There they told me that the criminals carried firearms and machetes, and kidnapped women, men and children," Alejandro said.
The migrant said he took the same north-south train ride across Mexico to reach the United States years ago.
"Back then it was quiet," he said. "Now it is the most horrible experience possible due to crime and kidnappings."
100 kidnapped
Alejandro was the last of the Central Americans from the train ride at the town shelter, and said he planned to soon continue his trip north. He also hopes to find his missing son.
"I haven't seen my son yet, but I know he's already on his way," he said.
Father Heyman Vasquez, who runs an Oaxaca shelter for migrants, said on Tuesday that as many as 100 migrants were kidnapped by gunmen during the raid, citing about 50 migrants who reached his shelter after the incident.
He said Mexican police had earlier stopped the train and detained nearly a third of the 300 migrants believed to be on board. Mexican authorities confirmed that 92 migrants were detained at a checkpoint.
The criminal raid allegedly took place soon thereafter, Vasquez said, citing witnesses.
The head of another nearby shelter said he received 19 migrants after the attack and requested police protection after armed men from two powerful gangs warned him to give them up or "face the consequences".
Migrants avoid police
Citing witnesses who escaped the mass kidnapping, El Salvador's Deputy Foreign Minister Juan Jose Garcia said that most of the 50 abducted migrants were from El Salvador.
Migrants avoid Mexican police for fear of being deported, which could explain why news of the kidnapping took so long to emerge.
In August, the bodies of 72 abducted US-bound Central American migrants were found on a ranch in northern Mexico in what police said was a mass execution by the Zetas gang of men and women who refused to work for them.
Around half a million illegal migrants cross Mexico each year, mostly from Central America on their way to the US border, according to Mexico's Human Rights Commission.
The head of the Migration Institute, Salvador Beltran, told local radio that the drug cartels "are apparently having major difficulties recruiting Mexicans, so they are focusing on migrants".
The office of the Commission on Human Rights (CNDH) and non-governmental groups say that holding migrants for ransom is big business: They estimate that 20 000 migrants were kidnapped by Mexican gangs in a six-month period between 2008 and 2009, producing $50m in ransom.
Mexican authorities estimate that half a million migrants travel through Mexico from Central America each year on their way to the United States.
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