Monument to honour dual citizens slain in Mexico
PRESIDENT Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Sunday that a monument would be put up to memorialise nine US-Mexican dual citizens ambushed and slain last year by suspected drug gang assassins along a remote road in the northern border region near New Mexico.
In remarks to members of the small town of La Mora, which was shattered by the November 4 killings of three women and six children from the extended Langford, LeBaron and Miller families, Lopez Obrador said the first goal was to bring those responsible to justice.
Speaking after meeting with the victims’ relatives, the president said an agreement had been reached with municipal and Sonora state officials to establish a monument of some sort “here where these lamentable and painful events took place,” and also for special recognition of those who risked their lives to rush to the aid of victims and survivors.
“So that we exalt this, the true solidarity: he who is willing to give his life for another,” Lopez Obrador said.
The mostly bilingual American-Mexicans have lived in northern Mexico for decades and consider themselves Mormons, though they are not affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The killings sowed grief and fear in the tightly knit communities, and dozens fled La Mora for the US in the subsequent days out of concerns for their safety.
What was once a tranquil and even idyllic life in a fertile river valley surrounded by mountains and desert scrub had grown increasingly tenuous as criminal gangs exerted their influence and fought each other, some said.
Victims’ relatives said on Thursday that US authorities told them they had detained two suspects in the killings, and Mexican prosecutors said earlier in the week that more than 40 suspects had been identified. |