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Mexico: up to nine members of US Mormon family killed in ambush Mexico: up to nine members of US Mormon family killed in ambush
(about 4 hours later)
LeBaron family relatives say nine victims, mainly children, dead in attack on dirt road between Chihuahua and Sonora statesLeBaron family relatives say nine victims, mainly children, dead in attack on dirt road between Chihuahua and Sonora states
Gunmen have killed up to nine members of an American Mormon family, believed to be mainly children, in the latest massacre to afflict Mexico, family members said. Cartel gunmen in northern Mexico have killed at least six children and three women in an ambush that left six other children wounded, one baby unharmed, and reports that another child was still missing.
The victims belonged to the LeBaron family from a breakaway Mormon community that settled in the hills and plains of northern Mexico decades ago. Victims and survivors of the attack near the border between the states of Sonora and Chihuahua all belong to a well-known Mormon family that is based in Mexico but has dual US/Mexican citizenship and deep roots on both sides of the frontier.
Donald Trump responded to news of the attack on Twitter, saying “a wonderful family and friends from Utah got caught between two vicious drug cartels, who were shooting at each other ”. The massacre prompted three tweets from Donald Trump urging Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to “wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth” – and offering US help to do this.
In Mexico, there was no immediate indication of who was behind the attack. Monday’s merciless slaughter of children and their mothers is the latest in a recent string of violent episodes which have piled pressure on López Obrador to modify his softly-softly approach to organized crime.
Chihuahua and Sonora state governments issued a joint statement saying an investigation had been launched and some people were presumed dead and others missing. The statement noted additional federal and local security forces were being sent into the area near the border between the two states, but did not provide further details. Initial accounts from local authorities and relatives of the victims differed on several key points, but it appears that the three women were travelling in three SUVs with their children when they were attacked on a remote and unpaved mountain road at around 1pm on Monday.
Two relatives, Alex and Julian LeBaron, told Reuters nine people had died, though a government source confirmed five. It was unclear what motivated the killings, which took place on Monday on a dirt road between Chihuahua and Sonora states, both bordering the US. According to relatives, the three vehicles were travelling from the community of La Mora, Sonora toward Pancho Villa, in Chihuhua. They set out together, but one of them later fell behind because of a flat tire.
A video posted on social media showed the charred and smoking remains of a vehicle riddled with bullet holes that was apparently carrying the victims when the attack happened. That car was the first to be found shot up and burnt out with the bodies of one woman – later identified as Rhonita LeBarón – her twin babies and two other small children dead inside.
“This is for the record,” says a male voice in an American accent, off camera, choking up with emotion. “Nita and four of my grandchildren are burnt and shot up.” The other two vehicles, driven by Dawna and Christina Langford, were found about 18km (11 miles) further along the road at the top of a hill.
Reuters could not independently verify the video. According to a statement released by the Sonora attorney general’s office, a woman and two children were found dead in one of the cars. The third woman was found dead a few meters from the third vehicle.
Mexico has been hit by a wave of attacks in recent weeks, shocking even for a country inured to a decade of drug war violence. The most notable incident was a military-style cartel assault that forced the government to release a leader of the Sinaloa cartel in October. Julián LeBarón, a relative of the victims, said that he reached the scene with the security forces hours later, and opened the door of one of the vehicles to find a baby still inside completely unharmed.
Trump passed comment on Twitter on Tuesday morning, writing that “many great American people [were] killed, including young children, and some missing. In an interview with Aristegui Noticias, he said it appeared most of the rest of the surviving children had walked 15km (9.3 miles) back to La Mora where they alerted the authorities.
“If Mexico needs or requests help in cleaning out these monsters, the United States stands ready, willing and able to get involved and do the job quickly and effectively. The great new President of Mexico has made this a big issue, but the cartels have become so large and powerful that you sometimes need an army to defeat an army!” He said one of the children said their mother had been gunned down after she got out of the car screaming at the attackers to stop shooting.
Trump concluded: “This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth. We merely await a call from your great new president!” “We are very upset,” he said. “It is just impossible to understand why they would attack cars full of women and children in two separate incidents.”
Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has turned away from the militarized anti-narcotics tactics of his predecessors which failed to stop organized crime and led to widespread human rights abuses. The president, widely known as Amlo, vowed to “pacify” the country by waging war on the social roots of crime, but his strategy has so far failed to reign in the violence, and in the first nine months of this year, Mexico suffered an average of close to 100 murders a day. Another relative, Kendra Miller, said in a Facebook post that the first news of the massacre arrived in La Mora when a 13-year-old survivor got there hours later.
Julian LeBaron described the incident as a “massacre”, saying some family members were burned alive. In a text message, he said other injured members of the family were being transported to Phoenix for treatment. He said four boys, two girls and three women were killed. “After witnessing his mother and brothers being shot dead, Dawna’s son Devin hid his 6 other siblings in the bushes and covered them with branches to keep them safe while he went for help,” she wrote. “When he took too long to return, his 9 year old sister left the remaining five to try again.”
“We don’t know why, though they had received indirect threats. We don’t know who did it,” he said. Miller wrote that Devin’s news prompted an armed search party from the community that was soon aborted because of continual shooting in the area. She said the hidden children were not found until 7.30pm, more than six hours after the ambush. The nine-year-old was found lost in the mountains later.
Several children who fled the attack were lost for hours in the countryside before being found, Julian LeBaron added. Both the Mexican authorities and relatives said that they believed that cartel gunmen had mistaken the convoy of vehicles for rivals from another group.
“My cousin was murdered with her children in the truck,” Alex LeBaron said, adding he believed nine people died. “It looks like the criminal groups disputing control of the region might have got the vehicles confused,” said Alfonso Durazo, public security secretary.
In 2010, two members of the Chihuahua Mormon community, including one from the LeBaron family, were killed in apparent revenge after security forces tracked drug gang members. The Mormons had suffered widespread kidnappings before that. Durazo was speaking during the daily press conference held by López Obrador that was dominated by the massacre – and coincided with Trump’s flurry of tweets.
Mormons of Germanic origin settled in northern Mexico in the 1920s from the US. The group broke away from the mainstream Mormon church when it abandoned polygamous marriages. The US president described López Obrador as the “great new President of Mexico” and called on him to accept US help eliminating the cartels came in the middle of the conference.
Christopher Landau, the US ambassador to Mexico, who traveled to Sonora earlier on Monday for unrelated work meetings, said he was following the incident closely. “The United States stands ready, willing & able to get involved and do the job quickly and effectively,” he tweeted. “The cartels have become so large and powerful that you sometimes need an army to defeat an army.”
“The security of our co-nationals is our great priority,” he said on Twitter. After profusely thanking the US president for his offers of help, López Obrador said he wasn’t interested.
The US embassy in Mexico did not immediately respond to a request for more information after hours. “The worst think you can have is war,” he said. “That is not an option.”
López Obrador has turned away from the militarized anti-narcotics tactics of his predecessors which failed to stop organized crime and led to widespread human rights abuses.
The president, widely known as Amlo, vowed to “pacify” the country by waging war on the social roots of crime, but his strategy has so far failed to reign in the violence, and in the first nine months of this year, Mexico suffered an average of close to 100 murders a day.