Cartels and traffickers prey on caravan

Women, men, children: Gone.

According to Oaxaca human rights ombudsman Arturo Peimbert, around 100 members of the Central American migrant caravan never made it to Mexico City on their trek north, but instead were kidnapped in Veracruz.

The kidnap victims were likely turned over to the Zetas, a fearsome cartel that controls human trafficking [source missing] in the region.

The Veracruz passage is particularly dangerous for migrants who have not paid their protection money to the cartel, as was the case with these caravan members.

The risk was exacerbated by a new regional-transit policy, established under pressure from the federal Mexican and American governments, that forbade drivers from allowing migrants to board public buses.

Despite warnings against it, some turned to rides from private vehicles instead.

This appears to have been a trap that put them in the hands of criminal cartels that control the Veracruz passage.