MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico has identified nine other Guatemalan victims among the 19 people who died in a massacre in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas last month, authorities said Saturday.
So far, 16 of the victims have been identified, including two Mexican nationals and 14 Guatemalans, the Tamaulipas State Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.
Authorities have been working to identify the bodies using DNA collected by people who believe their relatives, many of whom are Guatemalan migrants, may be among the victims. The bodies, some heavily charred and with gunshot wounds, were found along a popular migrant smuggling route in a remote area of Tamaulipas bordering the United States in northeastern Mexico.
The murders have sparked new consternation in Mexico about the dangers facing migrants, many of whom come from the three violent and impoverished Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
One of the newly identified persons is called Paola D. “Z” by the Mexican public prosecutor’s office, presumably Paola Damaris Zacarias. Her family told Reuters last month she was suspected of being one of the dead. [L1N2K50G9]
(Reported by Mexico City Newsroom; written by Drazen Jorgic; edited by Christian Schmollinger)