Mexico City, Mexico – National Guard officers shot and killed two Colombian nationals in Baja California, northwest Mexico, on November 2, according to a statement from Mexico’s Ministry of National Defense (SEDENA).
It is the second time in a month that security forces have attacked migrants in Mexico.
SEDENA issued a statement saying a National Guard patrol opened fire after being shot by armed civilians traveling in a truck.
“An exchange of gunfire ensued against National Guard personnel, who returned fire, causing one of the vehicles and the passengers to flee,” the statement said. “As a result, two people were killed, four were injured and one remained unharmed, all of Colombian nationality. Additionally, a Mexican male was arrested.”
A statement from the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Relations said it was working with Mexican authorities to obtain more information on the killings and was working with the families of the victims.
Local news outlet Zeta Tijuana, citing interviews with the victims, published a report contradicting SEDENA’s official account, saying the attack was unprovoked and that the migrants in the truck were unarmed and traveling to the US border. Mexico.
“We didn’t have any weapons, we’re not criminals, we never fired at them,” one of the surviving victims told Baja California-based media, which also reported that authorities found no firearms or bullet casings inside. the truck in which the immigrants were traveling.
Four Colombian immigrants who survived the shooting were taken to hospital for their injuries. Twenty-year-old Ronaldo Andrés Quintero Peñuelas died of gunshot wounds to the head and chest, and Yuli Vanessa Herrera Marulanda, 37, died of a gunshot wound to the head.
It is the second attack by security forces on migrants traveling through Mexico in a month as the country continues to militarize its immigration police at the US-Mexico border.
On October 1, army soldiers fired on a truck carrying 33 migrants, mistaking them for armed criminals, in Chiapas on Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala. The attack resulted in 12 wounded and six dead migrants from Egypt, El Salvador and Peru.
In that case, the military also initially accused the migrants in the pickup truck of shooting at the soldiers first, although that theory was later dismissed by the military itself.
Read more: The Mexican military killed six migrants from Egypt, El Salvador and Peru in Chiapas
Increased violence against migrants by Mexico’s armed forces may be a symptom of the militarization of the country’s migration policy.
“The securitization and militarization of migration control, which has been advanced in recent years by the federal government, is certainly related to the increase – both in terms of scope and cruelty – of risks, violence and human rights violations against migrants”, Sergio Luna. , said the coordinator of the Network for Documentation of Migrant Protection Organizations (REDODEM). Aztec reports.
Rights organizations such as REDODEM point out that Mexico’s migration authorities have deepened their military ties since former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office in 2018.
Additionally, the creation of the National Guard, originally conceived as a civilian police force and later joined by the military under López Obrador’s watch, has strengthened the military’s presence in public security strategies and migration control.
“The National Guard and the National Migration Institute (INM) both have military training and include high-ranking military profiles within their structure, as military officers, for example, in the National Migration Institute and now, of course, in the National Guard” , Luna explained.
As of June 2023, 14 of the 32 national immigration stations were under the control of former military officials.
Throughout López Obrador’s administration, increasing numbers of military troops were deployed to control migratory flows. By 2022, his government had increased the number of soldiers and National Guard members focused on immigration by 46%.
Furthermore, the National Guard is the most dangerous security agency in Mexico in terms of human rights violations, accumulating 1,772 complaints of various abuses ranging from the use of excessive force, torture, enforced disappearance and murder .
“So this is where we stand – concerned because this militarization points to a larger crisis, an intensification of the humanitarian crisis related to the influx of people,” Luna said.
