CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (AP) — MEXICO CITY (AP) — Two U.S. citizens missing since their violent abduction last week in the northern Mexican border city of Matamoros have been found dead and two others are alive, the state’s governor said Tuesday.
Tamaulipas Gov. Américo Villarreal said that one of the surviving U.S. citizens was wounded and the other was not.
The FBI had reported Sunday that it was searching with Mexican authorities for the missing Americans, who had been kidnapped Friday. A relative of one of them said Monday that they had traveled together from South Carolina so one of them could get a tummy tuck from a Matamoros doctor.
Shortly after entering Mexico Friday they were caught in the crossfire of rival cartel groups. A video showed them being loaded into the back of a pickup truck by gunmen.
Villarreal confirmed the deaths by phone during a morning news conference by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, saying details about the four abducted Americans had been confirmed by prosecutors.
“Of the four, two of them are dead, one person is wounded and the other is alive and right now the ambulances and the rest of the security personnel are going for them for give the corresponding support," Villarreal said
The governor did not share any additional details about where or how they were found.
Mexican officials said a Mexican woman also had died in Fridays' crossfire.
The incident illustrates the terror that has prevailed for years in Matamoros, a city dominated by factions of the powerful Gulf drug cartel who often fight among themselves. Amid the violence, thousands of Mexicans have disappeared in Tamaulipas state alone.
“All four Americans were placed in a vehicle and taken from the scene by armed men,” the FBI said.
A video posted to social media Friday showed men with assault rifles and tan body armor loading the four people into the bed of a white pickup in broad daylight. One was alive and sitting up, but the others seemed either dead or wounded. At least one person appeared to lift his head from the pavement before being dragged to the truck.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Monday that “there was a confrontation between groups, and they were detained,” without offering details. He originally said the four Americans came to Mexico to buy medication.
A woman driving in Matamoros who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal said she witnessed what appeared to be the shooting and abduction.
The white minivan was hit by another vehicle near an intersection, then gunfire rang out, the woman said. Another SUV rolled up, and several armed men hopped out.
“All of a sudden they (the gunmen) were in front of us,” she said. “I entered a state of shock, nobody honked their horn, nobody moved. Everybody must have been thinking the same thing, ‘If we move they will see us, or they might shoot us.’”
She said the gunmen forced a woman, who was able to walk, into the back of a pickup. Another person was carried to the truck but could still move his head.
“The other two they dragged across the pavement, we don't know if they were alive or dead,” she said.
Mexican authorities arrived minutes later.
Shootouts in Matamoros were so bad on Friday that the U.S. Consulate issued an alert about the danger and local authorities warned people to shelter in place. It was not immediately clear how the abductions may have been connected to that violence.
U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar said in a statement Monday the Americans were kidnapped at gunpoint.
Victims of violence in Matamoros and other large border cities of Tamaulipas often go uncounted because the cartels have a history taking bodies of their own with them. Local media often avoid reporting on such episodes out of safety concerns, creating an information vacuum.
The State Department warns U.S. citizens not to travel to Tamaulipas. However U.S. citizens who live in Brownsville or elsewhere in Texas frequently cross to visit family, attend medical appointments or shop. It's also a crossing point for people traveling deeper into Mexico.
As the headquarters of the Gulf cartel, Matamoros was once relatively calm. For years, a night out in the city was part of the “two-nation vacation” for spring breakers flocking to Texas’ South Padre Island.
But increased cartel violence over the past 10 to 15 years frightened away much of that business. Sometimes U.S. citizens are swept up in the fighting.
Three U.S. siblings disappeared near Matamoros in October 2014 while visiting their father and were later found shot to death and burned. Their parents said they had been abducted by men dressed in police gear identifying themselves as “Hercules,” a tactical security unit in the city.