A Response to a Plea, Comales and Camargo Revisited

Que tal gente! I am back to update you all on Camargo and Comales from my last post. Well some of us decided to mobilized and in a collective effort we started to make some telephone calls to media sources and political power houses.

Camargo and Comales, Tamaulipas - Yesterday the Mexican Army arrived to the townships of Camargo and Comales Tamaulipas, in response to allegations made by concern citizens since last Monday April 12 via the Internet. The people from these towns were reporting daily shootings and the continuing presence of armed commandos fighting against each other. They were also reporting the burning of homes and businesses, including the office of the town Mayor.

Through the eyes of the social networks such as Facebook and this blog Borderland Beat, internet social groups reported on the presence of troops in Camargo:

"They arrived in about 20 Hummers and a large transport truck. They (the soldiers) apparently were going to be quartered in what was once the facilities of the Hospital Corpus Christi (which was burned by gunmen early Monday)," wrote one of them.

In addition, they said that they had reports that the soldiers were able to remove a heavy equipment tractor and other vehicles that the narcos had used to obstruct the passage on a bridge from Camargo to Comales.

"I'm sure many now some of us will take this opportunity to cross the border to Rio Grande (Texas township that is contiguous with that of Camargo), because the days of terror that we have been living has lessen," said a villager.

According to official sources, after the arrival of the military, a group belonging to the Zetas that had taken Comales hostage, fled to other neighboring rural communities which prompted the surrounding communities to immediately call for help.

"They told us that in some of the communities they robbed a neighborhood store (abarrotes) and carjacked several vehicles from their drivers," said a source.

Yesterday, in a radio interview, the state attorney general, Hernán de la Garza Tamez, played down the calls for help and said that in the township of Comales the schools are operating normally, along with the commercial businesses and medical services. He pointed out that the presence of the military and municipal and state police are evident.

However, residents of this rural town, located adjacent to the dam Marte R. Gomez had called for help since Monday through the use of social networks requesting that their call for help be forwarded to anyone who could help, because a criminal group had them virtually held hostage. They had mentioned that the criminal group was controlling the people from entering and leaving the town.

For the case of Camargo, several residents reported through e-mail that Monday morning the Gulf cartel hitmen had entered the town to engage in a confrontation with the Zetas.

It did not take long for the locals to start uploading photos on the internet of burned homes and businesses, as well as audio of the shootings.

In messages sent in the internet to social groups, including Borderland Beat, the people in these towns were demanding that the government take immediate action to protect them from the fighting between criminal groups.

One of them said: "Camargo and Comales are dying, and with it a piece of Mexico, which surely our country is less interested in defending it, perhaps the U.S. would be better if they take it as part of them, if the Mexican government doesn't want us here perhaps the Americans will take advantage of these lands and these people ... There is no more faith here, and out hope is running out, if not already."

Food for thought!
The saga continues. . . . . .
Please keep the comments coming, when it comes to human suffering, there is no border wall thick enough!

From the news:

Mexican army seeks gunmen in hospitals, clinics in Camargo area.

A gunbattle Tuesday killed two soldiers, two assailants

The Monitor

Camargo, Tamaulipas - Mexican soldiers are looking for injured gunmen in hospitals and clinics following a shootout that left four people dead Tuesday south of Rio Grande City.

Two soldiers and two gunmen died in the gunfight, according to a statement issued Wednesday by the Mexican Defense Ministry.

Army personnel were patrolling Los Martinez ranch in Los Comales — a small community south of Camargo — when they began to trail six pickups traveling through the area suspiciously. The pickup drivers tried to get away, then started firing at the soldiers, officials said in the statement.

Three soldiers who were injured during the shooting were air lifted to the regional military hospital. Several gunmen who were also hurt were evacuated from the scene by other assailants, according to the statement. The two dead civilians have not yet been identified by authorities, and officials did not release the names of the soldiers killed.

The army deployed 200 military troops and two helicopters to look for the fleeing assailants after Tuesday’s confrontation, the statement said. Authorities did not say whether any arrests were made.

Calls made to the Mexican army’s military base in Reynosa were unanswered Wednesday. A spokesman with Mexico’s attorney general declined to provide further details about the incident.

The Mexican army is asking people to alert authorities if they saw males transported to nearby hospitals, clinics or other medical facilities in the past 24 hours suffering from gunshot wounds. They are also asking for information about any abandoned vehicles bearing bullet holes or fresh blood stains.

Monterrey-based El Norte newspaper reported that the bodies of two soldiers were found on the highway that links Reynosa to Monterrey Wednesday morning in General Bravo, citing anonymous sources. The newspaper said that the bodies were found with bullet wounds.

The area across from Starr County has seen a spike in violent incidents in past weeks, while Reynosa has been relatively calm.

The latest army casualty reported locally before Tuesday’s incident was late last month, when a soldier died during a shooting in Reynosa near the intersection of Boulevard Mil Cumbres and Avenida Central. Two other soldiers were injured and rushed from the scene to receive medical attention.

Last week, another clash resulted in at least one civilian fatality in Miguel Aleman. The same day, Tamaulipas authorities discovered the corpse of a man in a workshop in Camargo. The body was discovered in the Ampliación Gonzaleño subdivision, according to a statement posted on the Tamaulipas government’s emergency notification Web site. The victim was apparently shot to death.

Meanwhile, in Reynosa, no violence-related fatalities have been reported since April 2, when a prison break left three inmates dead and a gunfight killed five on the city’s southwest side.

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Categories: Mexican Crime, tamaulipas