The Mexican Government admits that the Army executed the five youths in Nuevo Laredo

The five young men who died on February 26 in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, were not armed and did not confront the soldiers who shot them, but rather were executed by them, the government admitted on Wednesday. Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

"It was not a confrontation, regardless of who they were,

," declared the Undersecretary for Human Rights of the Ministry of the Interior, Alejandro Encinas.

He added that the Ministry of the Interior will officially pronounce on the case when the National Human Rights Commission publishes its investigation, according to the newspaper El País and the Efe news agency, "but evidently there are elements to prove that the young people were not going to armed and that there was no confrontation”.

In addition to the five dead (among them an American), there were two wounded in the shooting.

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His statements contradict the first explanations of the Army, which indicated that the military fired after hearing a "rumble" and seeing the truck where the young people were going too fast, without lights and without license plates.

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In a testimony to authorities and human rights organizations published by El País, one of the survivors, 21-year-old Alejandro Pérez, recounted that they were returning home on Saturday night after partying at a club in the area when they were realized that a military vehicle was following them.

The car collided with the truck from behind him, he said, and bullets began to rain down on them.

At no time did they start the shooting, he said, because they were not armed.

The murdered youths were identified as the Mexicans Gustavo Pérez Beriles, Wilberto Mata Estrada, Jonathan Aguilar Sánchez, Alejandro Trujillo Rocha;

and the American Gustavo Ángel Suárez Castilo.

A Mexican soldier points his rifle at a man, who had accused the soldier of having participated with other soldiers in the shooting death of five people, in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico February 26, 2023. Jasiel Rubio/REUTERS

López Obrador commissioned the National Human Rights Commission to determine the role of the Army in the massacre so that, in the event that they are responsible, "they are punished."

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Among various civil organizations and agencies that have condemned the events, the Office in Mexico of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has also requested a "diligent, prompt and impartial" investigation.