At least three women and six children from a US-based Mormon community in northern Mexico have been killed in an ambush, likely victims of criminal gangs in the region, a relative of the victims said on Monday.
"It's a massacre," said Julian Lebaron, very shocked at Radio Formula. According to the anti-crime activist, the bullet-ridden bodies of his cousin and four children were first found in their burned-out truck in a region close to the US border. "My cousin Rhonita was picking up her husband at the Phoenix airport, they ambushed them, they opened fire on the van and they burned her with her four children, it's a massacre," she said. he affirmed.
The assailants sequestered two other vehicles that accompanied the first, and a few hours later, they were found with the dead bodies of two other women and two other children, a boy and a girl of about ten years . Five to six other children, one of whom was shot and wounded, managed to escape and walk home, and one girl was reported missing after running into the woods to hide, said Julian Lebaron.
The ambush area was a "war zone"
Asked about the perpetrators and motivations for this bloody attack, Julian Lebaron said that the ambush area was a "war zone" with drug traffickers and bandits of all kinds. The victims "may have been caught in crossfire, or were mistakenly targeted, we do not know," said Julian Lebaron, while pointing out that the Mormon community in this region had recently been the target of threats. Julian Lebaron's brother, Benjamin Lebaron, who had founded a crime-fighting group called SOS Chihuahua, had himself been assassinated in 2009.
The Chihuahua prosecutor, César Augusto Peniche, said that the number of victims remained "confused", because of the difficulty of access to the area, mountainous and wooded. The attack took place in Rancho de la Mora, on the border between the states of Chihuahua and Sonora, near the border with the United States.
Images showing the alleged victims of the attack have been shared on social networks, but the federal government has not yet responded, despite calls from Julian Lebaron to send helicopters to locate the victims and rescue any casualties. According to the Mexican press, the Lebaron family has asked for help from the US embassy.
US and Mexican governments could cooperate
In the aftermath of the massacre, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced that he will hold talks on Tuesday with US President Donald Trump about cooperation with the United States. "All the cooperation that will be needed is what I'm going to talk about now with Trump," he said at a press conference at the presidential palace in Mexico City. While thanking his American counterpart, the Mexican leader stressed the need to "consider ways in which it would be possible to help, while ensuring respect for our sovereignty as (the United States) do, and like others. countries do it ".
President Trump for his part called on Mexico to "declare war" with the help of the United States on drug cartels. "If Mexico needs or asks for help to get rid of these monsters, the United States is ready to do the job quickly and efficiently," he tweeted.
.... monsters, the United States stands ready, willing and able to get involved and do the job quickly and effectively. The great new President of Mexico has made this a big issue, but the cartels have become so large and powerful that you sometimes need an army to defeat an army!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 5, 2019The affected community is made up of descendants of Mormons who fled the United States in the nineteenth century to escape the repression of polygamy, practiced within their religion. Many Mormons in Mexico enjoy dual Mexican and American citizenship.