Four Americans kidnapped in Mexico border town

Gunmen kidnapped four U.S. citizens who crossed into Mexico from Texas last week to buy medicine and got caught in a shootout that killed at least one Mexican citizen, U.S. and Mexican officials said Monday.

The four were in a white minivan with North Carolina license plates. They came under fire Friday shortly after entering the city of Matamoros from Brownsville, the southernmost tip of Texas near the Gulf coast, the FBI San Antonio Division office said in a statement Sunday.

“All four Americans were placed in a vehicle and taken from the scene by armed men,” the office said. The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for the victims’ return and the arrest of the culprits.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Monday that the four were going to buy medicine and ended up in a crossfire between two armed groups, without offering details.

A video posted to social media Friday shows armed men, some wearing tan body armor, loading four people into the bed of a pickup truck in broad daylight. One was alive and sitting up, but the others appeared to be either dead or wounded.

Matamoros is home to warring factions of the Gulf drug cartel.

Shootouts there on Friday were so bad that the U.S. Consulate issued an alert about the danger and local authorities warned people to shelter in place. It was not immediately clear how the abductions could have been connected to the violence Friday.

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar said in a statement Monday that the Americans were kidnapped at gunpoint and an “innocent” Mexican citizen died in the attack. Authorities have provided no details about who the victims are or where they are from.

President Joe Biden had been informed of the situation, White House press secretary Karine Jeanpierre said Monday. She declined to answer other questions, citing privacy concerns.

Tamaulipas state police said people had been killed and injured Friday, but not how many.

Photographs from the scene viewed by The Associated Press show a white minivan with the driver’s side window shot out and all of the doors open sitting on the side of the road after apparently colliding with a red SUV. Multiple people were lying in the street beside it surrounded by gunmen.

ASSOCIATED PRESS Gunmen kidnapped four U.S. citizens who crossed into Mexico from Texas last week to buy medicine and got caught in a shootout. The four were in a white minivan with North Carolina license plates.