Two of the four US citizens abducted across the border in northeastern Mexico have been found dead, a senior Mexican official told media on Tuesday.
Rosa Williams, 35, and her son, Pablo Noe, 19, were among four people who were killed, the official told media agencies. They identified the other two victims as Alberto Nieto Nieto, 24, and Alma Yesenia Flores, 21.
“The attorney general’s office has confirmed that two of the four kidnappers are dead, one is injured and the other is alive,” Tamaulipas state governor Americo Villarreal told a news conference by telephone.
The US citizens arrived in Matamoros, Tamaulipas state on Friday in a white minivan with North Carolina license plates, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said in a statement on Sunday.
The attack happened Saturday in front of dozens of witnesses on a busy road in Ciudad Juarez, which is just across the U.S.-Mexico border from El Paso, Texas.
It has announced a $50,000 reward for help in bringing back the unidentified victims and apprehending the perpetrators.
“Shortly after entering Mexico, an unknown gunman opened fire on the occupants of the (minivan). All four Americans were placed in the vehicle and driven from the scene by gunmen,” the FBI said.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Monday that the victims were believed to have entered the country to buy drugs and were caught up in clashes between criminal gangs.
A Mexican citizen died in the incident, news agency AFP reported.
Investigators have not determined a motive for the shooting.
Matamoros, just across the U.S. border from Brownsville, Texas, has been plagued by violence related to drug trafficking and other organized crime. The US State Department has advised against traveling to Tamaulipas due to crime and kidnappings.
