SAN PEDRO PINULA, GUATEMALA.– For seven years, the first thing Carolina Nájera does when she wakes up is walk to an altar to the Virgin of Guadalupe, cross herself before the image and light a candle in memory of Juan Francisco Salguero, her husband.
It is a way to have him close, he says, but above all, to give light and tranquility to his soul.
Carolina, 31, imagines that her husband must have lived through hell in the moments leading up to his death.
Juan Francisco Salguero left his home in February 2014 and never returned to his town, San Pedro Pinula, a municipality of 61,000 inhabitants in the Jalapa department of southern Guatemala.
[Biden confirms that the refugee limit will increase to 62,500 after criticism for maintaining the quota set by Trump]
Neither did his fellow travelers, all neighbors and, some of them, family: Emiliano Nájera, Gustavo Nájera, José Ronaldo Morales, Maximinio Gómez, Melvin Mateo, Edgar Amilcar Arias Segura, Pedro Gómez and Silvestre Pérez.
The nine Guatemalans were kidnapped and murdered 2,200 kilometers away, in Tamaulipas, Mexico.
Only one international news agency reported in 2018 the discovery of the clandestine grave where their bodies were found three years after they were exhumed, when they managed to identify them.
The massacre had been buried at kilometer 35 of the Victoria-Monterrey highway, in Güemez, Tamaulipas, covered by the folios of an investigation that the Mexican and Guatemalan authorities never concluded.
Noticias Telemundo Investiga has had access to part of the investigation folder, the forensic reports and the testimonies of the relatives of the migrants to reconstruct the events in this forgotten massacre.
Family prayers and $ 11,600
The nine migrants paid between 50,000 and 90,000 quetzals each (6,500 and 11,600 dollars, respectively) requested by a coyote known to the community, and on February 10, 2014, they undertook the trip to the United States.
The coyote told them that the journey was safe.
[The Government announces the first four reunifications under Biden's mandate of migrant families separated by Trump]
Gustavo Nájera, 35, was in the group.
"We never imagined what would happen next," says his brother, Benjamin.
Two weeks before, Gustavo had come excited to tell the family that he had the possibility of traveling to the United States.
The idea had haunted him for years but the support of his seven children and his mountain of debt made it almost impossible to raise the money.
Until he found a "contractor" for the coyote.
This is what they call whoever previously negotiates with the families the price and the date of departure.
This intermediary told them that they should leave some house or land as collateral to cover the cost of the trip.
The family accepted the deal.
9776856 | https: //player.theplatform.com/p/0L7ZPC/2Ebwsgm4BTLn/embed/select/C6gpNZtPx52L? SiteSectionId = telemundo_vod | 360 | 640
“Before he left for the United States, the coyote came to see the house and said that he would accept it.
So, in order to guarantee Gustavo's crossing, we gave him the deeds so that he could keep the house if we did not pay the full cost of the trip ”, recalls Benjamin.
They left that February 10 at 4:00 am from the municipality of San Luis Jilotepeque, 18 kilometers away from San Pedro Pinula.
There they had to meet the coyote 'Marcos', who would take them to Mexico to deliver them to another coyote.
The latter had to cross them to the United States.
The day before Gustavo left, they said goodbye for the last time: the family got together, ate together, hugged and prayed that everything went well.
"It seems that the prayers weren't enough because we never imagined that it would be the last time we shared food with him and that I could see my brother in the eye," Benjamin says as he flips through the family photo album.
"We have to start looking for them"
[Abandoned by coyotes or massacred by drug traffickers on the way to the United States: "If they kill you, who is going to claim you?"]
Lorena Morales remembers that, when she was a child, she played with her brother José Ronaldo, three years younger, to be bus drivers.
It was all fun: while one pretended to be the driver, the other charged the fare.
So they could spend hours and hours.
They were very close.
“I don't think I'll ever get over his death.
I still think one day is going to come and we are going to sit in the trees where we played when we were children ”, says Lorena Morales.
His brother was 21 when he last saw him.
Two days after starting the trip, José Ronaldo called Lorena to deposit 6,000 quetzals ($ 770) for the coyote.
They were about to cross into Mexico and, if he didn't deposit the money, they would take it back to Guatemala, he asked his sister.
Gustavo Nájera called Martha, his mother, seven days after he left Guatemala.
He told him that the group was near the border with the United States, in Reynosa, Tamaulipas.
That was the last communication with someone from the migrant group before they disappeared forever.
[This is how coyotes mock the Border Patrol and this is what they charge for a trip that sometimes turns out to be deadly]
“Two weeks after the last call, the atmosphere began to feel tense.
The families did not hear from them again and the anguish began to invade us ”, remembers Lorena Morales.
Carolina Nájera waited the 20 days that her husband told her it would take her to reach the United States.
The coyote had been clear: nothing to carry a phone, so Juan Francisco left the house alone with a change of clothes, another pair of shoes, and his identification card.
At 20 days, Carolina dialed the coyote's number.
On the other end of the phone, he heard an annoyed voice: “Why are you calling me?
Everything is going well, don't worry ”.
When her husband left, Carolina was two months pregnant and was caring for her then two-year-old son, affected by cerebral palsy.
Juan Francisco's work as a farmer was not enough to pay for the boy's doctors, so he decided to try his luck looking for a job in the United States to send money to his family.
Weeks passed and fathers, mothers, wives, children and siblings of some of the nine families began to see each other each night.
"We have to start looking for them," said Dona Martha.
They insisted on the coyote, Lorena even went to his house to ask him: "I tried to insert a phone and record it but he discovered it and threatened to kill me if I did."
A jail, a warehouse and a possible kidnapping
The coyote insisted that they were fine, that they were only waiting to cross because the line had gotten difficult.
[How will the money that was spent on the construction of the wall be used?]
With this argument, the relatives resisted a few more days but, in desperation to hear from them, they again confronted the coyote and, from here, the trail of the migrants became blurred.
According to the investigation folder, these clues arrived that needed to be investigated and corroborated:
The trafficker told the families that the group had been detained by police officers and were in a prison known as 'La Grande' in San Fernando, Tamaulipas.
This data was recorded but was never investigated by the then Attorney General's Office.
There is no evidence that there is a prison there known by that nickname.
Weeks later, a young man from the same group told relatives that after the last call made by one of the migrants, they were all locked in a warehouse located five minutes from the Rio Grande.
The young man explained that he was able to reach the United States.
He managed to escape from the cellar and go with another coyote.
Once on US soil, he contacted some relatives of the disappeared migrants and told them what had happened.
The PGR points out the possibility that in that warehouse they were kidnapped by members of organized crime, but this information could not be verified by the Attorney General either.
Investigators had one more clue.
The relatives explained that the coyote they hired in Guatemala told them that on February 18, 2014 at eight in the morning he received a call from one of the guides.
He told them that the group had taken a bus in Guanajuato, had passed Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco, and had arrived in Tamaulipas.
There, a checkpoint of judicial or federal police (this is stated in the investigation folder) waited for them to collect a bribe to be able to continue on the road.
According to the coyote, the driver told him that at the checkpoint, the police took the migrants off the bus and ordered the driver to leave.
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But this account could not be corroborated either.
Nobody knows what really happened.
The coyote was never detained and did not provide further information.
What's more, he threatened family members to stop asking him.
Neither Mexico nor Guatemala investigated the massacre
The relatives went to the Guatemalan Prosecutor's Office, three months after the disappearance to report the case to the Public Ministry, but they only took their statement.
They were assured that it was up to the Mexican government to begin the investigations.
In Mexico, at the request of the Guatemalan government, the Tamaulipas Prosecutor's Office and the then Attorney General's Office opened an investigation folder.
However, for more than a year, from 2014 to 2015, no government made progress in the investigations.
It was the worst year in Lorena's life: "It was a bad dream, the worst of my life."
Today, he regrets having paid the coyote who led them to Tamaulipas.
"Why did I pay?" She wonders as she hugs the wooden frame that holds her brother's photo.
Lorena believes that the coyote turned them over to organized crime.
["They abandon women and children if they don't keep up with the group": Biden's government presents a plan against coyotes]
According to a recent report by the Mexican Federation of Public Human Rights Organizations (FMOPDH), at least 2,000 migrants disappeared in Mexican territory in 2020. The United States Department of State indicates Tamaulipas with the same level of danger as countries such as Syria and Iraq.
Human remains and beer cans in a mass grave
At 10 am on February 16, 2015, an agent of the Tamaulipas Public Ministry reported the discovery of a clandestine grave in “Rancho el 26” of the Ejido Plan de Ayala in Güemez, Tamaulipas.
The Mexican Army found her in an area surrounded by fruit trees.
It was an excavation one meter long, 40 centimeters wide and 60 centimeters deep.
In the background were human forearm bones and a pair of hands tied with a belt, as well as empty beer cans and two glass bottles.
The experts began the excavation and found six more human silhouettes.
In total, 16 bodies were exhumed, of which nine belonged to the group of Guatemalans that left San Pedro Pinula on February 10, 2014.
The experts found in the trouser bag of one of the bodies a credential issued by the Guatemalan government in the name of Santos Cruz Gómez Castro, a resident of El Zunzo, a community close to San Pedro Pinula.
That would be the common thread to determine the identity of the rest of the bodies.
After being exhumed, they remained frozen in the Forensic Medical Service Amphitheater in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas until the bodies of the nine residents of San Pedro Pinula were identified in 2018, when the Foundation for Justice and the Democratic State of Law assumed the legal representation of family members.
The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team also participated in the identification process, the same team that collaborated in the investigations into the case of the 43 Ayotzinapa normalistas who disappeared in 2016.
In their report, the Argentine experts determined that the Guatemalans were tortured before being killed with a firearm.
Some were shot in the head.
All had the same degree of decomposition and similar injuries.
Therefore, the forensics conclude that they were murdered on the same day and under similar circumstances.
The bodies of three other migrants were also found: Carlos Roberto Mejía Sánchez, Iris Teresa Reyes Rubí and Ramón Edgardo Vásquez Díaz
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The nine migrants who left together on the same day from San Pedro Pinula, February 10, 2014, also returned to their town on the same day four years and 8 months later on October 27, 2018, but they did so in wooden boxes. .
The coffins were buried in the local cemetery in the presence of many residents who attended the funeral shocked by a tragedy they had just learned.
Everyone wondered how, after almost 5 years, the relatives had managed to find the bodies.
Five migrant massacres and a forgotten massacre
In May 2014, one of Gustavo Nájera's eight siblings asked the Foundation for Justice and the Democratic State, an NGO based in Mexico City, for help in locating the group.
"If we had not intervened, no instance in Mexico would have initiated an investigation of the events," says Fabianne Cabaret, coordinator of the organization's Comprehensive Defense Area.
The relatives point out to the authorities of their country: "They have not supported us," says Carolina Nájera.
"Guatemala annulled the process of taking DNA samples from us and refused to receive the bodies," says Benjamín Nájera.
[She died in Mexico on the way to the border.
Two years later, his family in El Salvador still demands justice]
Noticias Telemundo contacted the Guatemalan embassy in Mexico, but received no response to a request for comment.
Güemez did not have the impact or coverage of other massacres. No one spoke of the grave when the Mexican Army found it: “They were intended so that no one would remember them. In those years, 2014-2015, graves were no longer counted, we already lost count. At the level of truth, justice and reparation, the common denominator is impunity. It is the lack of clarification of how the events occurred and the lack of attention and reparation to the families, even more so for families that do not live in Mexican territory ”, he adds.
A data from the Ministry of the Interior of Mexico itself exemplifies it: “If it is considered that 63% of the migrants who transited through Mexico and who were returned by the United States authorities declared to have entered through the state of Tamaulipas, it is possible to conclude that the migratory route of the Gulf of Mexico is the most used but it is also the most risky, since only in Tamaulipas four out of every 10 migrants who passed through Veracruz and Tabasco died ”.
The Güemez massacre is one more than a history of massacres in northern Mexico in the last decade, mainly in Tamaulipas:
In August 2014, the “San Fernando Massacre” was recorded, as the murder of 72 migrants in that town in the state of Tamaulipas was known. 58 men and 14 women, mostly from Central and South America, were killed from behind and their bodies piled up in an abandoned vacant lot, because their relatives did not pay the money they demanded to release them and refused to be recruited for the Zetas, the criminal group blamed for the executions, according to investigations.
The next year, in April 2011, also in San Fernando, 193 remains of people were discovered in 48 clandestine graves. The bodies, the majority of migrants who were on their way to the United States, showed signs of arbitrary execution, of the total 130 died as a result of blows with blunt objects (some inflicted by victims forced to do so) and eighty percent of the remains presented traces of torture.
In 2012, during the early hours of May 13, the Mexican Army reported the discovery of 49 human torsos at kilometer 47 of the Monterrey-Reynosa highway in the municipality of Cadereyta, Nuevo León.
There were 43 men and six women, of which only 10 victims of Honduran nationality have been identified, who were heading to the United States fleeing the difficult economic conditions and violence.
The most recent was in January 2021 in Camargo, also Tamaulipas, where 19 people of Guatemalan and Mexican origin were burned 69 kilometers from the United States border.
Due to this fact, 12 state police officers were arrested for their possible participation in the murder of the 19 migrants.
None of them have been fully resolved, nor have those responsible been brought to justice.
"We can go and leave flowers on their graves, but we ask for truth, justice and that the Mexican authorities also investigate," demands Carolina Nájera.
In the case of Güemez, according to Cabaret, justice goes through first knowing what happened and why they were killed, something almost impossible, he says: "It is more likely that another massacre will occur before we know the truth of the previous ones."
SAN PEDRO PINULA, GUATEMALA.– For seven years, the first thing Carolina Nájera does when she wakes up is walk to an altar to the Virgin of Guadalupe, cross herself before the image and light a candle in memory of Juan Francisco Salguero, her husband.
It is a way to have him close, he says, but above all, to give light and tranquility to his soul.
Carolina, 31, imagines that her husband must have lived through hell in the moments leading up to his death.
Juan Francisco Salguero left his home in February 2014 and never returned to his town, San Pedro Pinula, a municipality of 61,000 inhabitants in the Jalapa department of southern Guatemala.
[Biden confirms that the refugee limit will increase to 62,500 after criticism for maintaining the quota set by Trump]
Neither did his fellow travelers, all neighbors and, some of them, family: Emiliano Nájera, Gustavo Nájera, José Ronaldo Morales, Maximinio Gómez, Melvin Mateo, Edgar Amilcar Arias Segura, Pedro Gómez and Silvestre Pérez.
The nine Guatemalans were kidnapped and murdered 2,200 kilometers away, in Tamaulipas, Mexico.
Only one international news agency reported in 2018 the discovery of the clandestine grave where their bodies were found three years after they were exhumed, when they managed to identify them.
The massacre had been buried at kilometer 35 of the Victoria-Monterrey highway, in Güemez, Tamaulipas, covered by the folios of an investigation that the Mexican and Guatemalan authorities never concluded.
Noticias Telemundo Investiga has had access to part of the investigation folder, the forensic reports and the testimonies of the relatives of the migrants to reconstruct the events in this forgotten massacre.
Family prayers and $ 11,600
The nine migrants paid between 50,000 and 90,000 quetzals each (6,500 and 11,600 dollars, respectively) requested by a coyote known to the community, and on February 10, 2014, they undertook the trip to the United States.
The coyote told them that the journey was safe.
[The Government announces the first four reunifications under Biden's mandate of migrant families separated by Trump]
Gustavo Nájera, 35, was in the group.
"We never imagined what would happen next," says his brother, Benjamin.
Two weeks before, Gustavo had come excited to tell the family that he had the possibility of traveling to the United States.
The idea had haunted him for years but the support of his seven children and his mountain of debt made it almost impossible to raise the money.
Until he found a "contractor" for the coyote.
This is what they call whoever previously negotiates with the families the price and the date of departure.
This intermediary told them that they should leave some house or land as collateral to cover the cost of the trip.
The family accepted the deal.
9776856 | https: //player.theplatform.com/p/0L7ZPC/2Ebwsgm4BTLn/embed/select/C6gpNZtPx52L? SiteSectionId = telemundo_vod | 360 | 640
“Before he left for the United States, the coyote came to see the house and said that he would accept it.
So, in order to guarantee Gustavo's crossing, we gave him the deeds so that he could keep the house if we did not pay the full cost of the trip ”, recalls Benjamin.
They left that February 10 at 4:00 am from the municipality of San Luis Jilotepeque, 18 kilometers away from San Pedro Pinula.
There they had to meet the coyote 'Marcos', who would take them to Mexico to deliver them to another coyote.
The latter had to cross them to the United States.
The day before Gustavo left, they said goodbye for the last time: the family got together, ate together, hugged and prayed that everything went well.
"It seems that the prayers weren't enough because we never imagined that it would be the last time we shared food with him and that I could see my brother in the eye," Benjamin says as he flips through the family photo album.
"We have to start looking for them"
[Abandoned by coyotes or massacred by drug traffickers on the way to the United States: "If they kill you, who is going to claim you?"]
Lorena Morales remembers that, when she was a child, she played with her brother José Ronaldo, three years younger, to be bus drivers.
It was all fun: while one pretended to be the driver, the other charged the fare.
So they could spend hours and hours.
They were very close.
“Creo que jamás voy a superar su muerte. Aún creo que un día va a llegar y nos vamos a sentar en los árboles donde jugábamos cuando éramos niños”, dice Lorena Morales. Su hermano tenía 21 años cuando le vio por última vez.
Dos días después de emprender el viaje, José Ronaldo llamó a Lorena para que depositara 6,000 quetzales (770 dólares) para el coyote. Estaban a punto de cruzar a México y, si no depositaba el dinero, lo llevarían de vuelta a Guatemala, le pidió a su hermana.
Gustavo Nájera llamó a Martha, su madre, siete días después de su salida de Guatemala. Le dijo que el grupo estaba cerca de la frontera con Estados Unidos, en Reynosa, Tamaulipas.
Esa fue la última comunicación con alguien del grupo de migrantes antes de que desaparecieran para siempre.
[Así burlan los coyotes a la Patrulla Fronteriza y esto es lo que cobran por un viaje que a veces resulta mortal]
“Dos semanas después de la última llamada, el ambiente comenzó a sentirse tenso. Las familias no volvimos a saber nada de ellos y la angustia comenzó a invadirnos”, recuerda Lorena Morales.
Carolina Nájera esperó los 20 días que su esposo le dijo que tardaría en llegar a Estados Unidos. El coyote había sido claro: nada de llevar teléfono, así que Juan Francisco salió de casa solo con una muda de ropa, otro par de zapatos y la tarjeta de identificación.
A los 20 días, Carolina marcó el número del coyote. Al otro lado del teléfono, escuchó una voz molesta: “¿Por qué me está llamando? Todo va bien, no se preocupe”.
Cuando su esposo partió, Carolina estaba embarazada de dos meses y tenía a su cargo a su hijo de entonces dos años de edad, afectado por una parálisis cerebral. El trabajo de Juan Francisco como agricultor no alcanzaba para pagar los médicos del niño, así que decidió probar suerte buscando un trabajo en Estados Unidos para enviarle dinero a su familia.
Pasaron las semanas y padres, madres, esposas, hijos y hermanos de algunas de las nueve familias comenzaron a verse cada noche. “Tenemos que empezar a buscarlos”, decía doña Martha. Insistieron al coyote, Lorena incluso fue a su casa a preguntarle: “Intenté meter un teléfono y grabarlo pero lo descubrió y me amenazó con matarme si lo hacía”.
Una cárcel, una bodega y un posible secuestro
El coyote insistía en que estaban bien, en que solo estaban esperando para cruzar porque la línea se había puesto difícil.
[¿En qué se usará el dinero que se gastaba en la construcción del muro?]
Con ese argumento, los familiares resistieron algunos días más pero, ante la desesperación por tener noticias de ellos, volvieron a confrontar al coyote y, a partir de aquí, la pista de los migrantes se vuelve borrosa.
Según la carpeta de investigación, llegaron estas pistas que debían ser investigadas y corroboradas:
El traficante contó a las familias que el grupo había sido detenido por policías y se encontraban en una cárcel conocida como 'La Grande' en San Fernando, Tamaulipas.
Ese dato fue anotado pero nunca fue investigado por la entonces Procuraduría General de la República. No hay constancia de que allí exista una cárcel conocida con ese sobrenombre.
Semanas después, un joven del mismo grupo contó a los familiares que después de la última llamada hecha por uno de los migrantes, todos fueron encerrados en una bodega ubicada a cinco minutos del Río Bravo. El joven explicó que él pudo llegar a Estados Unidos. Logró escapar de la bodega e irse con otro coyote. Una vez en suelo estadounidense, se comunicó con algunos familiares de los migrantes desaparecidos y les contó lo sucedido.
La PGR apunta la posibilidad de que en esa bodega fueran secuestrados por miembros del crimen organizado, pero esta información tampoco pudo ser comprobada por la Procuraduría.
Los investigadores tenían una pista más. Los familiares explicaron que el coyote que contrataron en Guatemala les dijo que el 18 de febrero de 2014 a las ocho de la mañana recibió una llamada de unos de los guías. Les dijo que el grupo había tomado un autobús en Guanajuato, habían pasado Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco, y habían llegado a Tamaulipas. Allí, un retén de policías judiciales o federales (así lo recoge la carpeta de investigación) les esperaban para cobrar un soborno para poder continuar el camino. Según el coyote, el chófer le dijo que en el retén, los policías bajaron a los migrantes del autobús y ordenaron al conductor que se marchara.
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Pero este relato tampoco pudo ser corroborado. Nadie sabe qué pasó en realidad. El coyote nunca fue detenido y no proporcionó más información. Es más, amenazaba a los familiares para que dejaran de preguntarle.
Ni México ni Guatemala investigaron la masacre
Los familiares acudieron a la Fiscalía de Guatemala, tres meses después de la desaparición para denunciar el caso ante el Ministerio Público pero solo les tomaron su declaración. Les aseguraron que correspondía al gobierno de México comenzar las investigaciones.
En México, a solicitud del gobierno de Guatemala, la Fiscalía de Tamaulipas y la entonces Procuraduría General de la República abrieron una carpeta de investigación. Sin embargo, durante más de un año, de 2014 a 2015, ningún gobierno avanzó en las investigaciones.
Fue el peor año en la vida de Lorena: “Fue un mal sueño, el peor de mi vida”. Hoy, lamenta haber pagado al coyote que los guió hasta Tamaulipas. “¿Por qué pagué?”, se pregunta mientras abraza el marco de madera que guarda la foto de su hermano. Lorena cree que el coyote los entregó al crimen organizado.
[“Abandonan a mujeres y a niños si no siguen el ritmo del grupo”: el Gobierno de Biden presenta un plan contra los coyotes]
Según un reciente informe de la Federación Mexicana de Organismos Públicos de Derechos Humanos (FMOPDH), al menos 2,000 migrantes desaparecieron en territorio mexicano en 2020. El Departamento de Estado de Estados Unidos señala a Tamaulipas con el mismo nivel de peligro que países como Siria e Irak.
Restos humanos y latas de cerveza en una fosa común
A las 10 de la mañana del 16 de febrero de 2015, una agente del Ministerio Público de Tamaulipas reportó el hallazgo de una fosa clandestina en el “Rancho el 26” del Ejido Plan de Ayala en Güemez, Tamaulipas.
La encontró el Ejército Mexicano en un área rodeada de árboles frutales. Era una excavación de un metro de largo, 40 centímetros de ancho y 60 centímetros de profundidad.
En el fondo se observaban huesos humanos de antebrazo y un par de manos atadas con un cinturón, además de latas de cerveza vacías y dos botellas de vidrio.
Los peritos comenzaron la excavación y encontraron seis siluetas humanas más. En total, se exhumaron 16 cuerpos, de los cuales, nueve pertenecían al grupo de guatemaltecos que salió el 10 de febrero de 2014 de San Pedro Pinula.
Los peritos hallaron en la bolsa del pantalón de uno de los cuerpos una credencial emitida por el gobierno guatemalteco a nombre de Santos Cruz Gómez Castro, habitante de El Zunzo, una comunidad pegada a San Pedro Pinula. Ese sería el hilo conductor para determinar la identidad del resto de los cuerpos.
Después de ser exhumados, permanecieron congelados en el Anfiteatro del Servicio Médico Forense en Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas hasta que en 2018 fueron identificados los cuerpos de los nueve vecinos de San Pedro Pinula, cuando la Fundación para la Justicia y el Estado Democrático de Derecho asumió la representación jurídica de los familiares.
En el proceso de identificación participó también el Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense, el mismo que colaboró en las investigaciones sobre el caso de los 43 normalistas de Ayotzinapa desaparecidos en 2016.
En su informe, las peritas argentinas determinaron que los guatemaltecos fueron torturados antes de ser asesinados con arma de fuego. Algunos, con un disparo en la cabeza. Todos presentaban el mismo grado de descomposición y lesiones similares. Por eso, las forenses concluyen que fueron asesinados el mismo día y bajo circunstancias similares.
También se encontraron los cuerpos de otros tres migrantes: Carlos Roberto Mejía Sánchez, Iris Teresa Reyes Rubí y Ramón Edgardo Vásquez Díaz
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Los nueve migrantes que salieron juntos el mismo día de San Pedro Pinula, el 10 de febrero de 2014, también volvieron el mismo día a su pueblo cuatro años y 8 meses más tarde el 27 de octubre de 2018, pero lo hicieron en cajas de madera.
Los ataúdes fueron sepultados en el panteón de la localidad en presencia de numerosos vecinos que acudieron al entierro conmocionados por una tragedia que acababan de conocer. Todos se preguntaban cómo, después de casi 5 años, los familiares habían logrado encontrar los cuerpos.
Cinco matanzas de migrantes y una masacre olvidada
En mayo de 2014, uno de los ocho hermanos de Gustavo Nájera pidió ayuda a la Fundación para la Justicia y el Estado Democrático, una ONG con sede en Ciudad de México, para localizar al grupo.
“Si nosotros no hubiéramos intervenido, ninguna instancia en México habría iniciado una investigación de los hechos”, apunta Fabianne Cabaret, coordinadora del Área de Defensa Integral de la organización.
Los familiares señalan a las autoridades de su país: “No nos han apoyado”, dice Carolina Nájera. “Guatemala anuló el proceso de tomarnos muestras de ADN y se negaba a recibir los cuerpos”, apuntala Benjamín Nájera.
[Ella murió en México camino a la frontera. Dos años después, su familia en El Salvador todavía exige justicia]
Noticias Telemundo se puso en contacto con la embajada de Guatemala en México, pero no recibió respuesta a una solicitud de comentario.
Güemez no tuvo el impacto ni la cobertura de otras masacres. Nadie habló de la fosa cuando el Ejército de México la encontró: “Estaban destinados a que nadie se acordara de ellos. En esos años, 2014- 2015, ya no se contaban las fosas, ya perdimos la cuenta. A nivel de verdad, justicia y reparación, el denominador común es la impunidad. Es la falta de esclarecimiento propiamente de cómo ocurrieron los hechos y la falta de atención y reparación a las familias, más aún siendo familias que no viven en territorio mexicano”, añade.
Un dato de la propia Secretaría de Gobernación de México lo ejemplifica: “Si se considera que el 63% de las personas migrantes que transitaron por México y que fueron devueltas por las autoridades de Estados Unidos declararon haber entrado por el estado de Tamaulipas, es posible concluir que la ruta migratoria del Golfo de México es la más usada pero es también la más riesgosa, pues tan sólo en Tamaulipas fallecieron cuatro de cada 10 personas migrantes que pasaron antes por Veracruz y Tabasco”.
La masacre de Güemez es una más de un historial de matanzas en el norte de México en la última década, principalmente en Tamaulipas:
En agosto de 2014 se registró la “Masacre de San Fernando”, como fue conocido el asesinato de 72 migrantes en esa localidad del estado de Tamaulipas. 58 hombres y 14 mujeres, originarios en su mayoría de Centro y Sudamérica, fueron asesinados por la espalda y apilados los cuerpos en un terreno baldío abandonado, porque sus familiares no pagaron el dinero que les exigían para liberarlos y se negaron a ser reclutados para los Zetas, el grupo criminal al que se le atribuye las ejecuciones, según las investigaciones.
Al otro año, en abril de 2011, también en San Fernando, se descubrieron 193 restos de personas en 48 fosas clandestinas. Los cuerpos, la mayoría de migrantes que iban de paso hacia Estados Unidos, presentaban señales de ejecución arbitraria, del total 130 murieron como consecuencia de golpes con objetos contundentes (algunos infligidos por víctimas forzadas a hacerlo) y el ochenta por ciento de los restos presentaban huellas de tortura.
En 2012, durante la madrugada del 13 de mayo, el Ejército Mexicano reportó el hallazgo de 49 torsos humanos en el kilómetro 47 de la carretera Monterrey-Reynosa del municipio de Cadereyta, Nuevo León. Fueron 43 hombres y seis mujeres, de los cuales solo 10 víctimas de nacionalidad hondureña han sido identificadas las cuales se dirigían a los Estados Unidos huyendo de las difíciles condiciones económicas y de violencia.
La más reciente fue en enero de 2021 en Camargo, también Tamaulipas, donde 19 personas de origen guatemalteco y mexicano fueron calcinadas a 69 kilómetros de la frontera de Estados Unidos. Por este hecho, fueron detenidos 12 policías estatales por su posible participación en el asesinato de los 19 migrantes.
Ninguna de ellas se ha resuelto por completo, ni se ha llevado a los responsables ante la justicia.
“Ya podemos ir a dejar flores en sus tumbas, pero pedimos verdad, justicia y que las autoridades mexicanas también investiguen”, exige Carolina Nájera.
En el caso de Güemez, según Cabaret, la justicia pasa por saber primero qué pasó y por qué fueron asesinados, algo casi imposible, asegura: “Es más probable que ocurra otra masacre antes de que conozcamos la verdad de las anteriores”.
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