By EFE
May 24, 2024, 18:07 PM EDT
A wave of kidnappings provokes fear among migrants stranded on the northern border of Mexico, where a report from the Chihuahua State Police revealed that in the last three years they released more than 1,700 undocumented immigrants, who are about a third of the victims of crime. in the country.
The fear has escalated since Gilberto Loya Chávez, Secretary of State Public Security of Chihuahua, a state bordering Texas (United States), pointed out last week that during this historic migratory wave they have found that many undocumented immigrants kidnapped.
Among the kidnapping victims is Manuel, who arrived at the border of the Mexican Ciudad Juárez with the American El Paso from Ecuador and was detained upon entering Mexico.
“They kidnapped me for 27 days. I had to pay $4,000 dollars to be released in Tapachula (on the southern border of Mexico). And from there I have come walking, working, sleeping in the mountains, in the terminals, eating every two days and only once a day, this is hard,” he said.
The Ecuadorian said that, once people are captured, the families sell the few belongings they have to pay the ransom. He also pointed out that the Mexican government’s restrictions mean more danger for those who migrate.
“Why does the Mexican government make the past difficult for us? We are passing through, we are not taking away anyone’s job, we are leaving money where we arrive. In Chihuahua they kept us on the train for two days, they left us stranded in the desert,” commented the migrant.
Migrants: targets of crime
The situation occurs amid the almost 200% annual increase in irregular migration in the first quarter of 2024, when the Mexican government detected more than 360,000 migrants in this situation.
The civil association Stop Kidnapping reported 772 kidnappings of migrants in 2023, close to a third of the national total of victims of this crime, while in March it registered a “historic” figure of 521 kidnapped, of which more than half were undocumented. .
Rosa Mani Arias, coordinator of the Migrant Service of the civil organization Avara, considered the figure of the Secretary of State Public Security alarming, and attributed it to the lack of friendly policies for immigrants, who cross Mexico to avoid the operations of the National Institute of Migration.
“It is very worrying to see hundreds of people who are being violated, deprived of their freedom. Unfortunately, not allowing them to reach the border freely is having an impact,” said the activist.
He denounced that the Mexican government exacerbates the vulnerability of this group, which is already fleeing poverty and crime in their countries, and makes them easy targets for kidnappings.
“We have seen that laws or policies are not going to stop migratory flows, they always look for a way to reach the border areas and sadly we see this flow so vulnerable, and now this situation of being kidnapped is added,” he added.
He also warned that what is more worrying is the unknown number or the ‘dark figure’ of those migrants who have suffered a kidnapping, extortion or murder and for whom there is not even a complaint.
“There may be hundreds or thousands more who are anonymous, in complete silence, because it is not known in which other areas of the city these same dynamics exist with these people deprived of their liberty and we do not know their final whereabouts,” noted the activist.
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