Mexican forces search for 24 possible kidnapping victims

Authorities in Mexico were searching Saturday for two dozen people in Sinaloa state reported to have been kidnapped along with more than 40 others who have since been found alive.

The governor of the coastal state in northwest Mexico — home to the notorious Sinaloa drug cartel — had said earlier Saturday that 18 people had been found out of 25 missing, and did not explain the significant jump in both figures.

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“In total, 66 people were allegedly deprived of their freedom… of which 42 (24 adults and 18 children) have been located,” Ruben Rocha Moya said on X, formerly Twitter.

He said state and federal authorities were continuing to work to locate the missing people with the help of the military, which would be sending additional troops.

The local government has not reported any possible motives behind the kidnappings nor has it announced any arrests.

On Friday, an emergency hotline received reports of abductions from several homes in a working-class neighborhood of Culiacan, Sinaloa state security secretary Gerardo Merida said in a brief statement.

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The latest incidents followed an armed clash Thursday that left three people dead in the town of Badiraguato, birthplace of Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is serving a life sentence in the United States.

Authorities in Mexico declined to speculate on any connection between the two incidents.

Culiacan was the scene of violent riots by the Sinaloa cartel in October 2019 during an aborted operation to capture El Chapo’s son, Ovidio Guzman, and again in January 2023, when the son was finally arrested.

Murders, abductions and forced disappearances are daily occurrences in Mexico, particularly in areas gripped by turf wars between drug gangs such as Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel.

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The country has also seen a recent wave of attacks on municipal candidates, with a new mayoral candidate killed on Saturday in south-central Puebla state.

The death of Jaime Gonzalez, announced by the Puebla governor, comes just over a week after the mayor of a town in Jalisco state was found shot to death in a vehicle.

Humberto Amezcua, mayor of the town of Pihuamo, had been gearing up for reelection in Mexico’s June 2 presidential, legislative and local votes.

Since last June, more than 30 people have been murdered in election-related violence in Mexico, of whom 16 were aspiring candidates, according to research firm Laboratorio Electoral.

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Nearly 450,000 people have been murdered across Mexico since 2006, when then-president Felipe Calderon launched a controversial anti-drug military campaign, according to official data.