Nearly all victims of Mexican massacre confirmed as Guatemalans

Mexico City, February 6

Mexico has identified nine more Guatemalan victims who were among the 19 people killed in a massacre in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas last month, authorities said on Saturday.

So far, 16 of the victims have been identified, including two Mexican nationals and 14 Guatemalans, the prosecutor’s office of the state of Tamaulipas said in a statement.

Authorities have been working to identify the bodies using DNA collected by people who believe their relatives, many of whom are Guatemalan migrants, may be among the victims.

The bodies, some badly charred and with gunshot wounds, were found along a popular migrant smuggling route in a remote area of Tamaulipas, which borders the United States in northeastern Mexico.

The killings have caused renewed consternation in Mexico about the perils faced by migrants, many of whom come from the three violent and impoverished Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

One of the newly identified people is named by the Mexican prosecutor’s office as Paola D. “Z”, believed to be Paola Damaris Zacarias. Her family told Reuters last month she was suspected to have been among those who died. Reuters