Daily Times

Six bodies were discovered Wednesday in an area of Mexico where seven teenagers were kidnapped days earlier, authorities said — the latest abduction of youths in the violence-plagued country. One of the missing was found alive but injured in the municipality of Villanueva in the northern state of Zacatecas, according to officials. The six bodies were sent to the Zacatecas state capital to be identified, the state prosecutor’s office said in a statement. They were found in the same area where seven teenagers, aged 14 to 18 years old, were reported to have been abducted from a hacienda by suspected criminals early Sunday after a party.

“Six bodies of young people were found in the vicinity” but “we have to wait out of respect for the families” for formal identification, senior Zacatecas state official Rodrigo Reyes told the press. Two suspects were arrested in Villanueva and “there is a high probability that they are linked” to the crime, he said. The survivor was hospitalized with bruises and possible fractures to the head and nose, the prosecutors’ statement said. Relatives were receiving psychological care, it added.

While the motive for the kidnappings was unclear, the powerful Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels are fighting for control of lucrative drug trafficking routes to the United States through Zacatecas. Prosecutors said earlier that the kidnapping was not believed to be connected to forced recruitment by criminal groups.