MEXICO CITY — A drug cartel massacred 72 Central and South American migrants within 100 miles of the U.S. border they were trying to reach, according to an Ecuadoran survivor who escaped and stumbled wounded to a highway checkpoint where he alerted marines, officials said Wednesday.
The marines fought the cartel gunmen at a ranch in San Fernando, south of Brownsville, Texas, on Tuesday, a battle that left one marine and three suspects dead. The bodies of 58 men and 14 women were found in a room, some piled on top of each other.
The Ecuadoran migrant told investigators that his captors identified themselves as members of the Zetas drug gang, said Vice Adm. Jose Luis Vergara, a spokesman for the Mexican navy.
Authorities think the migrants were from Honduras, El Salvador, Brazil and Ecuador.
It is the biggest massacre to date in Mexico’s drug war and the most horrifying example yet of the dangers faced by immigrants trying to get to the United States.
“It’s absolutely terrible, and it demands the condemnation of all of our society,” said Alejandro Poire, the government’s security spokesman.
Authorities did not say why the gang killed the migrants. Mexico’s drug cartels frequently kidnap migrants and threaten to kill them unless they pay fees for crossing their territory.
A federal official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said investigators think the victims were killed in recent days.
The navy said it dispatched aircraft to check out the man’s report, and when the gunmen saw the marines, they opened fire and tried to flee in a convoy of vehicles. One marine and three of the suspects were killed in the shootout.
Navy personnel seized 21 assault rifles, shotguns and rifles and detained a minor. The youth, who apparently was part of the gang, was handed over to civilian prosecutors.
It was the third time this year that Mexican authorities have discovered a large number of corpses. In the two other cases, investigators think the bodies were dumped at the sites over a long period of time.
