MEXICO (Reuters) – Mexico identified nine more Guatemalan victims who were among 19 people killed in a massacre in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas last month, officials said on Saturday.
To date, 16 of the victims have been identified, including two Mexican citizens 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 that their relatives, many of whom are migrants from Guatemala, may be among the victims. The bodies, some severely charred and with gunshot wounds, were found along a popular migrant smuggling route in a remote area of Tamaulipas, which borders the United States in northeastern Mexico.
The deaths caused further dismay in Mexico over the dangers faced by migrants, many of whom come from the three violent and impoverished countries of Central America: Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
One of the people recently identified was named by the Mexican Public Ministry as Paola D. “Z”, who is believed to be Paola Damaris Zacarias. Her family told Reuters last month that she was suspected of being among the dead. [L1N2K50G9]
(Mexico City newsroom report; Drazen Jorgic newsroom; Christian Schmollinger edition)