Mexico’s human rights commission says marines abducted 27 and killed 12 in 2018

Mexican marines allegedly abducted 27 people in the northern border city of Nuevo Laredo , in Tamaulipas, in early 2018, 12 of whom were later found dead, according to an investigation launched by Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission ( CNDH ).

According to reports, authorities found 12 victims inside mass graves in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, and Anáhuac, Nuevo León. 13 others are still missing and only two of them were released days after their abduction.

The National Human Rights Commission said that marines had violated the victims’ “right to life,” but did not say they had killed them.

The CNDH also said marines engaged in “illegal searches and arbitrary detentions.” The commission issued a non-binding recommendation that criminal investigations are opened and changes are made in Navy patrol procedures.

On July 21, the Navy wrote in its Twitter account that “the points recommended were accepted.”

In Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas, the Navy was locked in a bitter fight at the time against the Northeast cartel, an armed group under Los Zetas cartel.

While Mexican marines had played a central role in going after violent drug cartels in previous administrations, that role has been reduced under current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The Navy has said cartel gunmen sometimes wear fake military uniforms and drive vehicles with military markings, but the human rights commission said that was not an adequate defense.

The commission also said it found inconsistencies, like changed identification of vehicles, in Navy reports on the incidents.

Time after time, witnesses told investigators that their relatives had been picked up while driving or walking on the streets of Nuevo Laredo in early 2018 by marines, or people wearing marine uniforms.

Recommended: Navy: systematic abuse and excessive use of force

The abductors also barged into some homes and businesses and snatched people without search or arrest warrants, and sometimes used unmarked or police vehicles to take people away.

While 15 were never heard from again, the bullet-ridden bodies of 12 did turn up in subsequent weeks, mostly dumped along roads or on rural properties.

In September 2018, the Navy said in a statement that 230 marines and 27 officers who had been serving in the area at the time had been called back to Navy headquarters in Mexico City, to have them cooperate with the investigations.

The Navy said at the time that it “would act firmly and with vigor in accordance with the law in this and all other cases in which naval personnel is considered probably responsible for violations of human rights .” However, it is unclear whether any charges have been filed in the disappearances. The CNDH urged civilian prosecutors and military internal affairs investigators to follow through on investigations.

The National Human Rights Commission also demanded that all military patrols be videotaped and that military forces not use civilian vehicles.

The commission filed a similar report implicating marines in the disappearance of five people from a motel in Ciudad Camargo, Tamaulipas in October 2016, including some U.S. citizens. They were never heard from again.

Recommended: 9 out of 10 people arrested by Mexican authorities are tortured and sexually abused

The commission said marines tore the motel’s security cameras out in an apparent attempt to cover up the abductions.

The CNDH suggested the Semar, the Tamaulipas government, and the Nuevo Laredo government compensate the victims’ families through financial aid and psychological help.

In July 2019, EL UNIVERSAL reported that 9 out of 10 people arrested by Mexican authorities are tortured and sexually abused.

According to the report, at least 10,000 people deprived of their liberty in Mexico have suffered sexual assault at the hands of Mexican authorities, either during the arrest, during transit to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, or upon arrival at government buildings.

The authorities that torture suspects the most are the navy, the army, and Federal Police (PF).

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