On Friday, June 23 a group of Central American migrants crossing México by freight train en route to the United States were kidnapped at gunpoint in Medias Aguas, Veracruz. The kidnapping took place the day after the dialogue between members of the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity and President Felipe Calderón about security and spiraling violence under the president’s war on drug trafficking. In México City, delegates of the Caravan demanded an end to the drug war while Calderón defended his strategy against organized crime and narcotrafficking, asserting that, if anything, the militarized strategy should have begun sooner.
Migrant kidnappings reflect the inability and unwillingness of the Mexican government to protect vulnerable groups such as these Central American transmigrants in the context of the violence unleashed under the drug war. They also reveal the costs of a broader “security” policy in both México and the United States that criminalizes migrants rather than defending their lives, security, and rights.
Catholic priest Alejandro Solalinde denounced the kidnappings based on reports from migrants who managed to flee the captors. Solalinde is director of the shelter Casa del Migrante “Hermanos en el Camino” (Migrant House “Brothers and Sisters on the Road”) in Ixtepec, Oaxaca and Coordinator of the Pastoral of Human Mobility for Mexico’s Southern Pacific Region. A bulletin released from the shelter on June 24 reported that a freight train carrying about 250 migrants atop was stopped near the Medias Aguas station and met by a group of at least ten men armed with high power weapons.
“Some [migrants] ran into the bushes to save their lives and those that could not escape were captured by these people and taken in SUVs to unknown destinations.” Based on how many migrants were on the train when it was stopped, migrants and shelter workers ...