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2011 San Fernando massacre
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2011 San Fernando massacre
The 2011 San Fernando massacre, also known as the second massacre of San Fernando, was the mass murder of 193 people by Los Zetas drug cartel at La Joya ranch in the municipality of San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico, in March 2011. Authorities investigating the massacre reported numerous hijackings of passenger buses on Mexican Federal Highway 101 in San Fernando, and the kidnapped victims were later killed and buried in 47 clandestine mass graves. The investigations began immediately after several suitcases and other baggage went unclaimed in Reynosa and Matamoros, Tamaulipas. On 6 April 2011, Mexican authorities exhumed 59 corpses from eight mass graves. By 7 June 2011, after a series of multiple excavations, a total of 193 bodies were exhumed from mass graves in San Fernando.
Reports mentioned that female kidnapping victims were raped and able-bodied male kidnapping victims were forced to fight to the death with other hostages, where they were given knives, hammers, machetes and clubs to find recruits who were willing to kill for their lives. In the blood sport, the survivor was recruited as a hitman for Los Zetas; those who did not survive were buried in a clandestine gravesite. After the massacre, thousands of citizens from San Fernando fled to other parts of Mexico and to the US. The Mexican government responded by sending 650 soldiers to San Fernando and establishing a military base in the municipality. The troops took over the duties of the police force in the city and worked on social programs. In addition, a total of 82 Zeta members were arrested by 23 August 2011. In 2012 tranquility slowly returned to the city, along with the inhabitants who fled because of the violence.
Mexican authorities are not certain why Los Zetas decided to abduct people from buses, and then torture, murder and bury them. They speculate that the Zetas may have forcibly recruited the passengers as foot soldiers for the organization, intending to hold them for ransom or extort them before they crossed into the US. Some killers, however, confessed that they abducted and killed the passengers because they feared their rivals, the Gulf Cartel, were getting reinforcements from other states. One of the leaders confessed that Heriberto Lazcano, the supreme leader of Los Zetas, had ordered the investigation of all buses coming in through San Fernando; those "who had nothing to do with it were freed. But those that did, they were killed." In addition, the killers claimed to have investigated passengers' cellphones and text messages to determine if they were involved with the Gulf Cartel or not, and that they were particularly worried about buses coming in from the states of Durango and Michoacán, two strongholds of the rival La Familia and the Sinaloa Cartels.
In early 2010, Los Zetas broke apart from the Gulf Cartel and both organizations turned their weapons against each other. The first clash between the groups happened in Reynosa, then expanded to Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros. The war spread throughout 11 of Tamaulipas' municipalities, 9 of which border Texas, and soon thereafter spread to Tamaulipas' neighboring states: Nuevo León and Veracruz. In the midst of violence and panic, authorities and media initially attempted to downplay the situation.
In San Fernando, Gulf Cartel forces led by Antonio Cárdenas Guillén "strung the bodies of fallen Zetas and their associates from light poles." The Gulf Cartel lashed out to attack Los Zetas at their stronghold in San Fernando. According to The Monitor, the municipality of San Fernando is a "virtual spiderweb" of dirt roads that connect with Monterrey, Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa, and Matamoros—making it a prized territory for drug traffickers.
In August 2010, Mexican Naval Infantry found 72 dead immigrants—58 men and 14 women—in San Fernando, killed by Los Zetas for their failure to pay their ransom and their refusal to work for the cartel. An Ecuadorian survivor faked his death and made it up to a military checkpoint, and subsequently led authorities to the 72 dead inside a warehouse on a ranch. The massacre was internationally condemned.
Between 24 and 29 March 2011, several public transportation buses that were heading to Reynosa, Tamaulipas, were hijacked in San Fernando.
On 6 April 2011 Mexican authorities found 59 bodies in eight clandestine mass graves in San Fernando, Tamaulipas. This discovery led officials to acknowledge that the Mexican drug cartels had begun to inflict fear through a new modus operandi: "stopping buses and removing passengers, some never to be seen again." Two weeks before the bodies were found, there were reports of buses being hijacked by the cartels near San Fernando, where cartel members would "stop the bus, select passengers, take them hostage." Fourteen cartel members were arrested too. By 8 April 2011, the secretary general of Tamaulipas, Morelos Jaime Canseco, confirmed the finding of 13 more bodies, increasing the body count to 72. When the death toll reached 72, bus lines in Tamaulipas refused to take people to San Fernando until the situation was resolved. Investigators began to mention that those killed were not migrants (like the previous massacre of the 72 migrants in 2010), but "fellow Mexican citizens".
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2011 San Fernando massacre
The 2011 San Fernando massacre, also known as the second massacre of San Fernando, was the mass murder of 193 people by Los Zetas drug cartel at La Joya ranch in the municipality of San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico, in March 2011. Authorities investigating the massacre reported numerous hijackings of passenger buses on Mexican Federal Highway 101 in San Fernando, and the kidnapped victims were later killed and buried in 47 clandestine mass graves. The investigations began immediately after several suitcases and other baggage went unclaimed in Reynosa and Matamoros, Tamaulipas. On 6 April 2011, Mexican authorities exhumed 59 corpses from eight mass graves. By 7 June 2011, after a series of multiple excavations, a total of 193 bodies were exhumed from mass graves in San Fernando.
Reports mentioned that female kidnapping victims were raped and able-bodied male kidnapping victims were forced to fight to the death with other hostages, where they were given knives, hammers, machetes and clubs to find recruits who were willing to kill for their lives. In the blood sport, the survivor was recruited as a hitman for Los Zetas; those who did not survive were buried in a clandestine gravesite. After the massacre, thousands of citizens from San Fernando fled to other parts of Mexico and to the US. The Mexican government responded by sending 650 soldiers to San Fernando and establishing a military base in the municipality. The troops took over the duties of the police force in the city and worked on social programs. In addition, a total of 82 Zeta members were arrested by 23 August 2011. In 2012 tranquility slowly returned to the city, along with the inhabitants who fled because of the violence.
Mexican authorities are not certain why Los Zetas decided to abduct people from buses, and then torture, murder and bury them. They speculate that the Zetas may have forcibly recruited the passengers as foot soldiers for the organization, intending to hold them for ransom or extort them before they crossed into the US. Some killers, however, confessed that they abducted and killed the passengers because they feared their rivals, the Gulf Cartel, were getting reinforcements from other states. One of the leaders confessed that Heriberto Lazcano, the supreme leader of Los Zetas, had ordered the investigation of all buses coming in through San Fernando; those "who had nothing to do with it were freed. But those that did, they were killed." In addition, the killers claimed to have investigated passengers' cellphones and text messages to determine if they were involved with the Gulf Cartel or not, and that they were particularly worried about buses coming in from the states of Durango and Michoacán, two strongholds of the rival La Familia and the Sinaloa Cartels.
In early 2010, Los Zetas broke apart from the Gulf Cartel and both organizations turned their weapons against each other. The first clash between the groups happened in Reynosa, then expanded to Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros. The war spread throughout 11 of Tamaulipas' municipalities, 9 of which border Texas, and soon thereafter spread to Tamaulipas' neighboring states: Nuevo León and Veracruz. In the midst of violence and panic, authorities and media initially attempted to downplay the situation.
In San Fernando, Gulf Cartel forces led by Antonio Cárdenas Guillén "strung the bodies of fallen Zetas and their associates from light poles." The Gulf Cartel lashed out to attack Los Zetas at their stronghold in San Fernando. According to The Monitor, the municipality of San Fernando is a "virtual spiderweb" of dirt roads that connect with Monterrey, Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa, and Matamoros—making it a prized territory for drug traffickers.
In August 2010, Mexican Naval Infantry found 72 dead immigrants—58 men and 14 women—in San Fernando, killed by Los Zetas for their failure to pay their ransom and their refusal to work for the cartel. An Ecuadorian survivor faked his death and made it up to a military checkpoint, and subsequently led authorities to the 72 dead inside a warehouse on a ranch. The massacre was internationally condemned.
Between 24 and 29 March 2011, several public transportation buses that were heading to Reynosa, Tamaulipas, were hijacked in San Fernando.
On 6 April 2011 Mexican authorities found 59 bodies in eight clandestine mass graves in San Fernando, Tamaulipas. This discovery led officials to acknowledge that the Mexican drug cartels had begun to inflict fear through a new modus operandi: "stopping buses and removing passengers, some never to be seen again." Two weeks before the bodies were found, there were reports of buses being hijacked by the cartels near San Fernando, where cartel members would "stop the bus, select passengers, take them hostage." Fourteen cartel members were arrested too. By 8 April 2011, the secretary general of Tamaulipas, Morelos Jaime Canseco, confirmed the finding of 13 more bodies, increasing the body count to 72. When the death toll reached 72, bus lines in Tamaulipas refused to take people to San Fernando until the situation was resolved. Investigators began to mention that those killed were not migrants (like the previous massacre of the 72 migrants in 2010), but "fellow Mexican citizens".