The U.S. Department of State is taking steps to repatriate the remains of the two victims.
Two Americans who were kidnapped and escaped violently in Mexico have come home and been taken to a hospital in Texas.
A State Department spokesman, Ned Price, stated during a press briefing on Tuesday that the two survivors had been returned to the United States. “And thanks to the help of our Mexican allies and government authorities in Mexico, that was able to happen. We’re attempting to get the bodies of the two Americans slain in this tragedy back to their families.”
Upon reaching the U.S. side of the border, the two survivors were taken in ambulances across the Veterans International Bridge from Brownsville, Texas, with the protection of local officials. According to NBC News, the two were then transported to Valley Regional Medical Center in Brownsville for medical attention.
Two of the four Americans kidnapped earlier Tuesday have been confirmed dead, Governor Americo Villarreal of Tamaulipas told The Associated Press.
On Friday, the four Americans were traveling from Brownsville, Texas, into Matamoros, Tamaulipas, when they were met with gunfire just after crossing the border. There was video footage of armed men, suspected to be members of a Mexican drug cartel, dragging the bodies of two victims over the pavement before putting them into the back of a white vehicle.
The attack injured another victim, while the fourth American escaped unharmed. According to U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar, an uninvolved Mexican civilian was also among those who perished.
Zalandria Brown, Zindell’s older sister, confirmed that he was one of the four kidnapped victims from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. According to Brown’s statement to the AP, her brother, and two other friends traveled to Mexico to support a fourth friend who was having belly tuck surgery there.
Latavia “Tay” McGee, Shadeed Woodard, and Eric James Williams, all of South Carolina, were supposedly the other three members.
Price assured reporters that “all relevant support” was being provided to the relatives of the detained individuals.
Price stated, “We express our heartfelt sympathies to the families and loved ones of the dead,” adding that Mexico and U.S. law enforcement collaborated “to discover these innocent victims” and a task team would “see that justice is done next.”