A swell of kidnappings causes fear among migrants stranded on the northern border of Mexico, where a report by the State Police of Chihuahua revealed that in the last three years they released more than 1,700 undocumented people, who are about a third of the victims of the crime in the country.

Fear has escalated since Gilberto Loya Chávez, Secretary of State Public Security of Chihuahua, a state bordering with Texas (United States), said last week that during this historic migratory wave they have found that number of kidnapped migrants.

Among the victims of kidnapping is Manuel, who arrived at the border of the Mexican Ciudad Juárez with the American El Paso from Ecuador and was detained when he entered Mexico.

“I was kidnapped for 27 days. I had to pay $4,000 to be released in Tapachula (on the southern border of Mexico). And from there I have come walking, working, sleeping in the mountains, in the terminals, eating every two days and only once a day, this is hard,” he said.

The Ecuadorian said that, once they capture the people, the families sell the few belongings they have to pay the ransom.

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He also pointed out that the Mexican Government’s restrictions imply more danger for those who migrate.

“Why does the Mexican government make it difficult for us? We are passing by, we are not taking anyone’s job, we are leaving money where we arrived. In Chihuahua they had us on the train for two days, they left us thrown in the desert,” said the migrant.

The situation occurs amid the almost 200% annual increase in irregular migration in the first quarter of 2024, when the Government of Mexico detected more than 360,000 migrants in this situation.

The civil association Stop the Kidnapping reported 772 kidnappings of migrants in 2023, about a third of the national total number of victims of this crime, while in March it recorded a “historical” figure of 521 kidnapped, of which more than half were undocumented.

Rosa Mani Arias, coordinator of the Migrant Service of the civil organization Avara, considered the figure of the Secretary of State Public Security “alarming”, and attributed it to the lack of policies friendly to immigrants, who cross Mexico to avoid the operations of the National Institute of Migration (INM).

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“It is very worrying to see hundreds of people who are being violated, deprived of their freedom. Unfortunately, not allowing them to reach the border in a free way is impacting,” the activist said.

He denounced that the Mexican Government exacerbates the vulnerability of this group, which is already fleeing poverty and crime in their countries, and makes them an easy target of kidnapping.

“We have seen that laws or policies are not going to stop migratory flows, they are always looking for a way to reach the border areas and sadly we see this flow so vulnerable, and now this situation of being kidnapped is added,” he added.

He also warned that the unknown number or the ‘black figure’ of those migrants who have suffered a kidnapping, extortion or murder and for whom there is not a complaint is more worrying.

“There may be hundreds or thousands more who are in anonymity, in complete silence, because it is not known in what other areas of the city there are these same dynamics with these people deprived of liberty and we also do not know the final whereabouts of them,” said the activist.

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