“Sol Prendido” for Borderland Beat
During the early morning hours of Friday, September 29, a group of migrants who were trying to illegally enter the United States through one of the dirt roads located on the slopes of Cerro El Cuchumá in Tecate, were surprised by armed men who shot at the group, the victims fled, requesting, via telephone, the support of the authorities.
Elements of Grupo Beta Tecate and the National Migration Institute (INM) in Baja California arrived at the scene, where they located and provided assistance to 11 Mexican nationals who managed to leave the Cerro de Cuchumá. In the area, one injured person was also located, meters later two more bodies of two Mexicans who were traveling in the group, as well as two more women were taken to a hospital with gunshot wounds.
The information was corroborated by representatives of the National Migration Institute in Baja California through a statement released to the media, as well as the municipal president of Tecate, Edgar Dario Benitez Ruiz, announced the facts through a Facebook page he manages.
The struggle for control of the main migrant smuggling routes in Tecate has left during the last two months more than a dozen bodies, presumably belonging to Mexican and foreign migrants, found dead near the dividing wall between the two countries. Members of the state security roundtable point to a fierce war between the Sinaloa Cartel, the main operator of drug and human smuggling routes in Tecate, and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which has been trying to take over these routes since May.
