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Relatives and friends of the victims of Nuevo Laredo: "When they see a new truck, the soldiers shoot"

2023-02-28T10:54:39.229Z


Official silence in the face of the shooting death of five young people allegedly at the hands of the Army


Four lime crosses cover blood scabs on a street in the south of Nuevo Laredo, in the State of Tamaulipas.

And on the sidewalk, arms crossed, angry looks, expressions of inflamed tone.

"Now what?

Can't we go out and have fun because we're already doing something wrong?” says one of the girls, without waiting for an answer.

The others nod and look at the ground.

Sunset in the border city.

He misses the contrast between the dark spots on the floor, the anger, and the sugary red of the horizon.

The dried pools of blood bear witness to the latest violent episode in Nuevo Laredo.

In the early hours of Saturday to Sunday, soldiers shot five boys to death here and left another badly wounded, according to neighbors, relatives and friends interviewed in the area.

Until Monday night, the Mexican Army has not given any explanation.

A spokesman for the Attorney General's Office (FGR) has only said that an investigation has been opened in this regard.

As explained by the Nuevo Laredo Human Rights Committee, a non-governmental organization, the boys went to a nightclub on Saturday night.

They left the place at about 4:00 a.m. and on the way back, an Army truck intercepted them.

The soldiers opened fire.

They fired more than 20 times, according to the Committee.

The organization points out that at least two of the five boys were killed by the soldiers, already in the street, outside the car.

Relatives and friends placed flowers and candles at the corner of Mendez and Huesca streets in the Manuel Cavazos Lerma neighborhood where five young people were allegedly killed by soldiers in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas early Sunday.

Monica Gonzalez Islands

The deaths of the young people and the suspicions that fall on the Army occur in a very complicated context.

Nuevo Laredo is one of the busiest border points between Mexico and the United States and one of the main commercial channels maintained by both countries.

The city is also the hideout of the Northeast Cartel, heir to Los Zetas, who use the place as a logistics hub for their businesses: migrant trafficking, drug trafficking...

The Armed Forces have assumed security in the streets of Nuevo Laredo for a long time, with often disastrous results, as is the case, for example, of the girl Heidi Pérez.

Last September, the minor, four years old, was shot to death by the military —in a case that was as confusing or even more confusing than this Sunday— when her caregiver was taking her to the doctor.

Heidi's death remains stuck in court.

Next to the place where the marks of the bullets fired this Sunday live a couple of sixty-year-olds, with their grandson, his wife, and two children aged two and four.

The lady, who prefers not to say her name, suffers from kidney failure and goes to the hospital three times a week for her hemodialysis sessions.

Bullet holes cover the front of the house, the windows, and part of the interior.

The shots destroyed the television and damaged the refrigerator and stove in the kitchen.

She says that out of 20 nothing, she has counted more than 60.

“I heard loud noises and woke up,” the woman says.

“I wanted to look out into the street, through the door and the window, but when we were leaving, a soldier came and closed the door and said, 'Go into the room.'

I thought he was dreaming,” she adds.

"From the inside I heard that someone was complaining, but I don't know who," she continues.

The husband, a skinny and diligent man, is taking care of the grandchildren in the backyard.

Asked about his memories, he gets up and walks to his room, which faces the street.

Husband and wife sleep separately.

Next to his bed, on the wall, there are two bullet holes.

“I was asleep like this and the shots started.

I got out of bed and rolled over and got under it,” he recounts.

View of the bullet wounds in a residence in the Manuel Cavazos Lerma neighborhood where members of the Army fired at the five young men in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas.

Monica Gonzalez Islands

The reason for the scuffle is unknown so far.

It is not even known if such a thing existed, if the bullets from the soldiers responded to an attack.

The Human Rights Committee of Nuevo Laredo points out that there is no evidence that something like this happened.

The authorities have not reported the seizure of weapons at the scene.

Beyond the deaths, the case has attracted attention due to the reaction it has provoked.

On Sunday morning, relatives, friends and neighbors from the area where the shooting took place, in the Cavazos Lerma neighborhood, confronted the military convoy that had come to the scene, to tow the van in which the youths were traveling, a White Chevrolet Silverado.

The images recorded by journalists and neighbors are very harsh.

In some videos, groups of people are seen savagely attacking at least two soldiers.

Others show how at least two soldiers fire their weapons to disperse the mob, one to the sky and the other to the ground.

The recordings also show how soldiers attack people who are taking pictures with their cell phones.

Next to the lime crosses is Sulim Pulido, 25, the partner of one of the dead boys, Gustavo Pérez.

Pulido says that on Saturday night, Pérez wrote to him to ask if he could go find him at the club, a trendy place called Mr. Pig.

“I told him to let me know when he was out, to go get him, but he didn't call me anymore,” he says.

“In the morning, I received a message from a friend, it would be 8:00 or 9:00.

She showed me some photos and asked if it was him.

I called Gustavo's mother crying and when she answered, she was crying too, ”he says.

The youths were traveling in a white Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck when members of the Mexican Army shot at them.

Monica Gonzalez Islands

Next to her, her friends and a group of five girls around 20 years old protest.

"Well, if they were up to something, they should stop them," says one.

“When the soldiers see a new truck, they throw you away,” adds another.

In the hours that have passed since the attack, several accounts on social networks have published the photo of another of the dead, Wilberto Mata, posing with weapons.

In the images and the texts that accompany them, they link the young man with the Northeast Cartel, regional heirs of Los Zetas.

— What do you think of these photos and this information?

— Look, says one of them, he was the only one who did work with them, but that day he was in civilian clothes.

Because when they work they can't go to clubs or anything.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-02-28

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