Official: Honduran helped massacre survivor flee

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - A Honduran who survived the massacre of 72 migrants in Mexico helped untie the only other survivor - a wounded Ecuadorean - and the two fled together, an official said Friday.

In an interview with El Heraldo newspaper, Honduran Deputy Foreign Minister Alden Rivera revealed details for the first time about the escape.

Mexican officials had previously said there was only one survivor of the massacre — the Ecuadorean who stumbled wounded to a military checkpoint and alerted marines. The Mexicans said when they learned that a Honduran also survived, they kept it a secret to protect him. But Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa revealed the information earlier this week.

Investigators believe the Zetas drug gang kidnapped the migrants and gunned them down after they refused to work for the cartel.

Marines found the bound, blindfolded bodies slumped against a wall last week after raiding the ranch in the northern state of Tamaulipas, which has been embroiled in a vicious turf battle between the Zetas and their former employer, the Gulf Cartel.

Mexican officials say cartels have increasingly been recruiting vulnerable migrants to smuggle drugs.

After the shooting stopped, the Honduran survivor managed to untie himself, then helped free the Ecuadorean, who had been shot in the neck, Rivera said.

Rivera did not say whether the Honduran was hurt but the Ecuadorean survivor, Luis Freddy Lala Pomavilla, told state-run television in Ecuador on Thursday that the Honduran somehow managed to avoid being shot.

Lala, 18, was flown home to Ecuador on Sunday after recovering from his wounds at a Mexican hospital. He is now under a witness protection program in Ecuador. The Honduran is under the protection of Mexican security forces.

Rivera said the two migrants fled the ranch together but when they heard gunshots behind them, they separated.

Lala said he approached two groups of people who refused to help him until he finally reached the marine checkpoint.

The Honduran, Rivera said, walked for a long time until he found a migrant shelter. Rivera revealed no other details about the migrant's escape, but said he was in good health and had been in contact with his family in Honduras.

Lala told Ecuadorean television that a total of 76 migrants were traveling together - Hondurans, Ecuadoreans, Guatemalans and at least one Brazilian.

But a spokesman for Mexico's Attorney General's Office, Ricardo Najera, said Friday that 77 people were in the group: the 72 killed, the two survivors and three Mexicans whose whereabouts were unknown.

The Mexicans were two drivers and an assistant, he said, adding the information came from the testimony of the Honduran and the Ecuadorean migrants.

In a statement that Lala gave to Mexican investigators, he said one migrant agreed to work with the Zetas, but did not reveal what happened to that person. The Associated Press has access to that statement last week.

During a meeting in Guatemala, meanwhile, Central American foreign ministers urged Mexico to find the killers and take steps to avoid more atrocities.

"We call on Mexican authorities to take measures as soon as possible to avoid events like the one that occurred in Tamaulipas," said Honduran Foreign Minister Mario Canahuati.

-Associated Press

Mexico: Soldiers kill 30 in troubled border state

MONTERREY, Mexico - Mexican soldiers killed at least 30 suspected cartel members in two shootouts near the U.S. border in a region that has become one of biggest battlegrounds in the country's drug war, authorities said Friday.

Twenty-five of the suspects were killed Thursday during a raid on a building in Ciudad Mier in Tamaulipas state. The other five were killed Friday in neighboring Nuevo Leon state, during a shootout on a highway leading to the border, the Mexican Defense Department said in a statement.

All 30 gunmen were believed to belong to the Zetas gang - the group suspected of killing 72 migrants nearly two weeks ago in what could be Mexico's biggest cartel massacre to date.

Violence along Mexico's northeastern border with Texas has reached warlike proportions amid fighting between security forces and two feuding drug gangs - the Zetas and the Gulf cartel, former allies who split this year and started a vicious battle for trafficking routes in the area.

One of two survivors of the massacre last month - an Ecuadorean - said the killers identified themselves as Zetas and gunned down the migrants because they refused to work for the gang.

A military aircraft flying over Ciudad Mier on Thursday spotted several gunmen in front of a building, the Defense Department statement said. When ground troops moved in, gunmen opened fire, starting a gunbattle in which 25 suspected cartel members died and two soldiers were wounded.

Authorities rescued three people believed to be kidnapping victims in the raid, according to the statement. The military said troops seized 25 rifles, four grenades, 4,200 rounds of ammunition and 23 vehicles.

Earlier, a military spokesman said the gunmen were believed to be on a property controlled by the Zetas.

The second shootout erupted Friday morning outside the town of Juarez in Nuevo Leon, on a highway leading to McAllen.

Soldiers went to the area after receiving an anonymous tip that armed men were circulating in a black SUV, according to a military spokesman. He provided the information on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to reveal his name. The spokesman said the armed men opened fire, provoking the shootout that killed five gunmen, all of whom were believed to be Zetas.

Drug violence has claimed more than 28,000 lives since President Felipe Calderon intensified a crackdown on cartels after taking office in late 2006.

-Associated Press