A commando of armed men on Tuesday abducted 14 state police officers in southern Mexico, prompting a heavy deployment of federal and local forces, authorities said.
The Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection in Chiapas state said in a statement that the 14 officers were all men, and an air and ground operation was under way to locate them.
An official with the state police force, who asked not to be quoted because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said the agents were traveling to the capital of Chiapas in a personnel transport truck when they were intercepted by several trucks carrying gunmen.
The women in the vehicle were released while the men were taken away, the official said.
The abduction occurred on the highway between Ocozocoautla and Tuxtla Gutierrez.
In videos posted online, whose authenticity prosecutors said they were working to verify, several individuals with long guns and bulletproof vests are seen next to at least three trucks that block a highway.
The Reforma newspaper reported that armed men stopped a vehicle that was transporting police employees, took their cell phones away and ordered them to lie on the ground.
Violence in the Mexican border region with Guatemala has escalated in the past few months amid a territorial dispute between the Sinaloa Cartel — which has dominated the area — and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
During a tour of Chiapas on Friday, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador minimized the violence in the area, saying that “in general there is peace, there is tranquility” in the state.
The day before the president’s visit, an official with the Attorney General’s Office was shot at in Tuxtla Gutierrez. Her companion was killed in the attack. The official was seriously injured and was hospitalized.
In addition, on Monday last week, a confrontation between the military and presumed members of organized crime left an element of the Mexican National Guard and a civilian dead in Ocozocoautla, near where Tuesday’s kidnapping occurred.
Additional reporting by AFP
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS