MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) – Mexico is investigating whether any officials were involved in the alleged massacre of 19 people in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas after a truck was allegedly seized by immigration authorities before the murder was found at the crime scene.
“We are going to see if there is any responsibility on the part of officials or civil servants of the National Migration Institute itself,” Olga Sanchez, Mexico’s interior minister, said Monday.
Prosecutors have so far genetically identified two Guatemalans and two Mexicans among the 19 victims, whose bodies were badly charred.
Some Guatemalan families have said they feared that loved ones trying to migrate to the United States were one of those killed in Tamaulipas.
A truck found at the scene of the crime was seized by immigration authorities in the neighboring state of Nuevo Leon in December, local media reported.
Nuevo Leon’s immigration institute did not respond to requests for comment on the seizure of the truck. Nuevo Leon’s prosecutor’s office referred Reuters to Tamaulipas’ prosecutor’s office, which said on Saturday that the truck was located at the scene of a “rescue” of 66 foreigners by local police and immigration authorities in December. The office said Monday it could not confirm the truck’s next seizure by the immigration agency.
Sanchez said the federal government was aware of the truck and the fact that it may have been in the possession of immigration authorities, but said the matter was still under investigation.
The killings have caused renewed consternation in Mexico over the dangers facing migrants, many of whom hail from the three violent and impoverished countries of Central America, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
(Reporting by Laura Gottesdiener and Adriana Barrera, writing by Laura Gottesdiener; Edited by Steve Orlofsky)
Originally published