Mexico rescues 52 migrants kidnapped near U.S. border
MEXICO CITY | Tue Jun 25, 2013 10:28pm EDT
(Reuters) - 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 U.S. 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 from the U.S. 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 them to carry drugs across the border.
(Reporting by Miguel Angel Gutierrez; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)
