The massacre in Northern Mexico against 19 people, most of them supposedly migrants, has shocked the country and brought to the table an alleged collusion between police, immigration officers and human trafficking networks on the border with the United States.
These are the most important questions to understand the progress of the studies:
– What happened in Camargo?
The Attorney General of Tamaulipas reported on January 23 the discovery of two burned trucks, one of them with 19 bodies inside, in the town of Santa Anita, Camargo County, on the Texas (United States) border and the Mexican state of Nuevo León.
The state ministry opened an investigation, according to which the victims were killed with firearms and later burned.
From the outset, it was suspected that the dead were migrants attempting to reach the United States through Mexico, and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Acnudh) compared the events to the San Fernando massacre in 2010. 72 migrants were killed. killed in the same region.
– Where do the victims come from?
The Guatemalan State Department confirmed on Jan. 27 that it analyzed at least 15 DNA samples from possible relatives of the alleged migrants, as the majority are believed to have come from the communities of Comitancillos and San Marcos.
Tamaulipas government security spokesman Luis Alberto Rodríguez told Efe on Wednesday that of the 19 bodies, two Guatemalans and two Mexicans are “fully identified”.
He explained that one of the Mexicans was connected to a migrant smuggling network, while the other was the one who claimed one of two vans at the crime scene in recent days, which was protected by the National Migration Institute (INM), which had her on December 6, intercepted in Escobedo (Nuevo León) with 66 other migrants in it.
Who is responsible?
Tamaulipas Attorney General Irving Barrios announced on Tuesday that 12 state police officers were arrested for their likely involvement in the crime and charged with first-degree murder, abuse of authority, poor execution of administrative functions and false reports.
Barrios did not specify whether the police officers committed the murder or covered up the killers, explaining that on the day of the events, other trucks carrying Salvadoran and Guatemalan migrants were driving through the area on their way to the United States.
“No casings have been found at the place where they were cremated, there may have been a change in the crime scene,” the security spokesman told Efe, adding that there were “inconsistencies” in the police reports.
– Did immigration officers participate?
Also in the spotlight is the National Migration Institute (INM) after it was learned that it had one of the two trucks from the crime scene in its possession.
Mexico’s Interior Minister Olga Sánchez Cordero, the ministry responsible for the INM, confirmed on Wednesday that “dozens of immigration officials” have been fired and reported to the prosecution for these events.
“We’ve had problems with many of the migration officials, especially with these kinds of rights violations, and we need to acknowledge it to move forward,” said Sánchez Cordero, who broke the official speech by Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. who usually claims that in There are no human rights violations of migrants in the country.
– What role does drug trafficking play in the area?
In addition to the investigation of the state police by the prosecution and immigration officers by the federal government, the authorities maintain the line of inquiry that points to the organized crime and migrant smuggling behind this entire network.
According to testimonials collected by Efe, on the afternoon of the events, hit killers from the Northeast Cartel, the former Zetas, collided with the Gulf Cartel, a criminal organization that controls Tamaulipas, at the site of the massacre.
Both cartels have been in a dispute over control of the northeastern states of Mexico since March 2010, a conflict that has caused more than 15,000 disappearances and thousands of deaths since that date.