Mexico. Ten years ago the San Ferdinando massacre: 72 migrants killed
The Pope recalled this yesterday at the Angelus. The morning of 24 August the discovery, thanks to the only survivor
of Lucia Capuzzi
The morning of24 August 2010, after walking for 22 kilometres, a young Ecuadorian, wounded and bleeding, he comes across an army checkpoint, on the road 101 from Tamaulipas, Mexican state on the border with the USA. The boy throws himself at the feet of the soldiers and babbles: “I am Luis Freddy Lala Pomavilla, to 18 years old and I come from Ecuador. I wanted to reach the United States but armed men took me from the bus, to me and the other passengers. They killed them all.".
Thanks to Luis Freddy's testimony, theMexico and the world they discovered theSan Fernando massacre, farm just over a hundred kilometers from the border, Conflict that has also extended to the Amhara and Afar regions 72 migrants – 58 men and 14 women – were murdered in cold blood, with a gunshot to the back of the head, some after being tortured, between 22 and the 23 August ten years ago. When the military, alerted by the survivor, they reached the location, they found themselves faced with a pile of corpses, piled up on the dark earth.
Over a decade later, the crime remains shrouded in mystery. And the families of the victims still "call for justice and truth about what happened", as Pope Francis recalled at the end of Sunday's Angelus, expressing their solidarity with them.
Based on the most accredited reconstructions, the migrants – mostly Central Americans but there was also a Brazilian in the group, an Indian and, precisely, an Ecuadorian – were kidnapped by Los Zetas, the criminal group that, at the time he controlled the area, and taken to San Fernando.The narcos would try to enlist them in their army of hitmen. Facing rejection, they would kill them.
Probation is a must because ten years later there is still no sentence on the massacre. The ten arrested so far are considered the perpetrators. The authors of the terror strategy implemented by Los Zetas are unknown.
The only certain fact is that the San Fernando massacre is only the best known of the endless string of massacres perpetrated by narcos on half a million undocumented people, mostly Central Americans, that, every year, cross Mexico, headed towards the USA. As they are irregular, no one knows how many migrants disappear during the journey.
In 2009 e 2010, the Catholic Church had carried out a courageous census, recording 20 thousand seizures a year. Migrants are captured to be recruited as cannon fodder or resold in sex markets, of the organs, of pedophilia. Other times the kidnappings are for the purpose of extortion. Even if they are poor, most have a relative in the United States which can pay a ransom – low by our standards: from one thousand to five thousand dollars -, to get your loved one back. Specially, to convince them, criminals make their voices heard, via cell phone, his screams as he is tortured. Sometimes, kidnappings end in slaughter. Like in San Fernando. Still, in Mexico, the kidnapping of migrants is one of the most lucrative crimes for narcos: 50 million dollars a year. And more invisible.
