Little by little, new clues are emerging about the chill that shook Mexico this weekend when authorities found 19 charred bodies in the border state of Tamaulipas.
The state prosecutor's office took DNA samples from the victims, who were found incinerated on Saturday, and is now collaborating with Guatemalan authorities to identify them, Luis Felipe Rodríguez, spokesman for State Security, reported on Monday to the Efe news agency.
Rodríguez mentioned that there are
16 men, one woman and two whose sex has not been determined by the state of the remains.
"From a precise, objective and legal point of view, the only thing that can demonstrate the identity of these people is the DNA and referenced or compared with that of a relative," he said.
However, relatives of
migrants from Guatemala
assured that they believe that 13 of the 19 charred bodies belong to their loved ones.
One of them could be
Marvin Tomás
, a
22-year-old
who played for a third division team in Guatemala.
For his sister Maribel Tomás, the situation "is very difficult."
He noted that he and 12 other people left Comitancillo, a very poor community in Guatemala, guided by a coyote they had hired.
Tomás asked for help to bring the body back to his country and to bury it.
Terror in a school in Tamaulipas due to shooting between hitmen
Sept.
12, 201800: 36
Osmar Miranda
, a
19-year-old
young man
, may be another of the victims.
His father, Jorge Miranda, assures that he was only looking for a job that would take him away from poverty.
Ramiro Coronado told The Associated Press news agency that his nephew, Adán Coronado, 31, had left San Marcos province for the United States along with other migrants about two weeks ago.
On Thursday they lost contact with them.
[Murdered a journalist who wrote about crime in Mexico, the most dangerous country in America for reporters]
"It was the first time he was going [to the United States]. He said he
wanted a better living situation for himself and his family,
" Coronado said.
Mexico's National Migration Institute claimed that it was working with foreign consulates in Mexico but that
the bodies were so damaged
that they could not be immediately identified.
The Guatemalan Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote in a press release that "the Mexican authorities are in the phase of carrying out tests for their identification, and for that reason they cannot confirm their identities at this time."
But Mario Gálvez, a deputy representing San Marcos, wrote on his social networks that among the disappeared migrants there were 10 men and three women.
The bodies of 19 people found burned in the border area between Mexico and the United States
Jan. 25, 202 101: 58
"We have contacted the relatives, they say that the bodies found belong to their relatives, they have information that it was that group," Gálvez wrote, "we have asked the Foreign Ministry to help the families with the repatriation of the bodies."
"They do not find development opportunities in their towns of origin, which have historically been totally abandoned by the government," wrote Gálvez, "the dream of our children and youth has become to reach the United States," he added.
Camargo, a disputed territory
This crime took place in the municipality of Camargo, Tamaulipas, near the border, a territory that has been disputed for years by the Northeast and Gulf cartels, becoming a dangerous route for migrants.
The Tamaulipas Attorney General's Office reported Saturday that it located the charred bodies in several vehicles in the town of Santa Anita, about 60 miles from McAllen, Texas, near Nuevo León.
[The horror of disappearances in Mexico: the country has more than 73,000 people not located]
A person alerted the Ministry of Public Security that there was a burning vehicle in a gap in the town of Santa Anita, according to the official text.
As a result of the complaint, the state police went to the place, where they located two burned vehicles, as well as the remains of people.
6,000 Honduran migrants are violently dispersed on the Guatemalan border
Jan. 19, 202102: 36
"In one of the vans there were two bodies in the cabin, another body on one side of the door on the pilot's side, one more on the side of the passenger's door and 15 in the box of the vehicle," said the state prosecutor's office.
The people were killed by
firearm projectiles and then set on fire
, according to the first investigations by the prosecution.
Although this clarified that so far no casings have been located in the area, so one of the lines to follow is that the events could have developed in a place other than that of the discovery.
Camargo is an important
transit
point
for drugs and migrants.
Authorities said three
rifles
were found
in the truck where the bodies were piled up.
Likewise, the molten remains that appear to be
cell phones were found.
This tragedy revives the memory of the
massacre of 72 migrants
that occurred in 2010 in the same state, when members of the Zetas cartel stopped two trucks that were transporting dozens of migrants, mostly Central Americans, and took them to a ranch in the town. Tamaulipeca of San Fernando.
After the migrants refused to work for the cartel, they were blindfolded, tied to the ground and shot dead.
In January 2020, 21 bodies, most of them burned, were found in various vehicles near the neighboring town of Ciudad Mier.
Days later, the Mexican army killed 11 suspected gunmen in the area.
With information from Efe and AP.