16 police officers kidnapped in Mexico were freed on Tuesday
About 1,000 law enforcement personnel were involved in the rescue of 16 hostages who were kidnapped in southern Mexico on Tuesday.
The Chiapas state governor did not provide details on how the police personnel were released.
AFP
Sixteen Mexican police officers kidnapped on Tuesday in the southern state of Chiapas were freed Friday, state governor Rutilio Escandon announced.
“I want to announce to the people of Chiapas and Mexico that the 16 kidnapped (Secretary of Civil Defense and Security) colleagues were released this afternoon,” the governor said on Twitter. Local television channels broadcast live the reunions between the freed people and their families.
Some staff showed signs of fatigue, AFP found. “My brother is in the ambulance now. “They are monitoring his vital signs because he has high blood pressure,” Benicia Rincon, sister of one of the freed hostages, told a local TV station.
Some details
On Twitter, the governor said, “Thanks to the cooperation of President @lopezobrador_ (Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador), the Mexican Army, Navy, National Guard, prosecutors and state police,” without elaborating on how the police officers were released.
A thousand members of the state and central security forces have since Wednesday been involved in operations to rescue the hostages, who were kidnapped in Ocozocoautla while traveling on a bus after work. Out of the 33 passengers in the bus, 17 women were released.
Videos of the victims were later broadcast by Mexican media. In one of them, one of the hostages explained that the kidnappers were demanding the resignation or dismissal of three Chiapas police chiefs accused of holding a woman hostage as part of a secret deal with another armed group.
“Associates”
In response, Mexico’s president offered on Thursday to open an investigation into three police chiefs on the condition that the kidnappers release the hostages. “The state authority and we (central government, editor’s note), will also investigate the conduct of the three officials accused of being accomplices of an armed group,” he told a press conference.
The Ocozocoautla region, which has recently seen increased clashes between police and armed criminals, is known as a transit zone for illegal immigration and drug trafficking in particular.
AFP
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