Posted on 01/18/2024 6:58:45 AM PST by lowbridge
A drug cartel in central Mexico has kidnapped 14 local residents, including four children, in apparent retaliation for an uprising by angry farmers earlier this month that killed 10 cartel gunmen, officials said.
Farmers in the village of Texcaltitlán and a neighboring hamlet had apparently grown tired of cartel extortions. Armed only with sickles and hunting rifles, they chased down suspected gang members amid bursts of automatic gunfire on 8 December, hacking, shooting and burning them. Four villagers also died in the clash.
Prosecutors said late on Wednesday that the cartel then abducted 14 people, including four children between the ages of one and a half and 14. The abducted adults include three policemen who were seized at a cartel roadblock, and a wounded villager the gang snatched from a hospital soon after the clash.
José Luis Cervantes, the head prosecutor for the state of Mexico, located west of the country’s capital, Mexico City, said no ransom demand had been received. Previously, state officials had denied anyone was kidnapped, and said they were simply “missing”.
But residents of the village and a nearby hamlet said the Familia Michoacana drug cartel was demanding they hand over the leaders of the uprising, in exchange for releasing the kidnapped children and adults.
Cervantes said none of the villagers would face charges for the 8 December clash, because the confrontation had been classified as “legitimate self-defense” because the farmers were defending their properties.
(Excerpt) Read more at amp.theguardian.com ...
The same cartels Biden is paying to traffic people to the US border.
We should declare war on Mexico.
We’re going to have to occupy it sooner or later.
“legitimate self-defense” Armed only with sickles and hunting rifles,
See! No one NEEDS a 30 shot rifle!(Sarc) They better have grabbed the ones from the dead cartel men and hid them well! It sound like they will need those firearms in the future.
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