According to Mexican and US authorities, two of the four Americans who were fired at by armed men and abducted immediately after entering northern Mexico for medical treatment last week are dead, and the two survivors have returned to the United States.
Américo Villarreal, the governor of Tamaulipas, said during a press conference on Tuesday that a man and a woman had escaped the abduction. The governor simply gave the woman’s name, LaTavia, and said she was uninjured. According to Villarreal, the individual, whose first name is Eric, received a gunshot wound to the leg.
By noon on Tuesday, he said, both were transported to a clinic for medical attention before being transported back to the United States across an international bridge between Matamoros, Mexico, and Brownsville, Texas.
According to Villarreal, a 24-year-old Tamaulipas man named Jose N “was discovered guarding the victims” and was taken into custody. Uncertain accusations were made against the individual.
During a presidential press conference on Tuesday morning, the governor phoned in to report the fatalities.
Ned Price, a spokeswoman for the State Department, said at a briefing on Tuesday that the survivors had indeed arrived back in the United States and that “we are trying to repatriate the bodies of the two Americans who were murdered in this event.” He said that the victims’ relatives are receiving help from the United States.