Armed men kidnapped 32 migrants in Mexico for extortion

The armed men who kidnapped 32 migrants in northern Mexico over the weekend aimed to extort money from them and their families in the United States, Mexico’s president said on Thursday, one day after the migrants were released from captivity.
He said that the migrants, who were found on Wednesday, were abandoned by their kidnappers in a parking lot in a commercial center in the northern Mexican city of Reynosa in the state of Tamaulipas.
The case has highlighted the risks faced by the hundreds of thousands of migrants who cross through Mexico en route to the U.S. border each year, who are targets of extortion and kidnapping by powerful criminal groups.
Human rights activists have been warning for months about an escalating kidnapping crisis along the Tamaulipas border, especially in Reynosa, where last year Reuters documented a pattern of kidnappings – and at times sexual assault – of migrants and asylum seekers.