Mexican authorities say they found 19 shot and burnt bodies near a town just across the Rio Grande from Texas in an area where there has been violent territorial disputes between organized crime groups in recent years. Tamaulipas prosecution said late Saturday that the bodies were discovered along a dirt road outside Camargo after residents reported a burning vehicle.
The authorities found two vehicles on fire, one with four bodies and the other 15. Some guns were also found.
They had all been shot, but no grenades were found at the site, leading investigators to believe they had been killed elsewhere.
A Camargo official, who asked for anonymity for security reasons, said the murders took place on Friday, but people were afraid to report it.
Meanwhile, rumors spread in Guatemala on Sunday that Guatemalan migrants were among the dead.
The State Department said in a statement that the Guatemalan Embassy in Mexico and the Consulate in Monterrey communicated with the state and federal authorities “to determine if a person of Guatemalan nationality is among the victims.” It said they triggered consular aid protocols.
Camargo is an important transit point for drug trafficking and migrants. Organized crime groups want control of parts of the border because they make money from everything that crosses the border.
Camargo is on the edge of territory historically controlled by the Gulf Cartel, and in recent years a remnant of the Zetas known to the Northeast Cartel has tried to take over.
In January 2020, 21 bodies, most of them burned, were found in various vehicles near the neighboring town of Ciudad Mier. Days later, the Mexican army killed 11 suspected gunmen in the area.
In January 2019, in the neighboring town Miguel Aleman24 corpses were found, 15 of them charred.
In August 2010, a group of 72 undocumented migrants was murdered in San Fernando, Tamaulipas. Authorities said the massacre was committed by the Zetas cartel, one of the most powerful at the time.
Mexico recorded 34,523 murders in 2020, a slight drop from the figure of 34,608 in 2019, a record high since the official figures began.
Cartel-related violence has ravaged Mexico since 2006, with more than 300,000 murders since then.
The AFP contributed to this report.