Busload of Migrants Goes Missing in Mexico

At least 40 Mexican migrants who were traveling in a bus from the central state of San Luis Potosi to the United States have been missing for more than a month, a lawmaker said.

Fernando Rocha, a legislator in the neighboring state of Queretaro, told Efe that the bus left the town of Xilitla on March 17 en route for Texas and Florida, where the emigrants had pre-arranged jobs waiting for them.

Most of the people on the bus were from San Luis Potosi and Queretaro, and among them were several minors, said Rocha, who added that there were no women on board.

Rocha said that relatives of the missing men, after they received no word from their loved ones for a time, decided to report the situation to the public prosecutor’s office in Ciudad Valles, near the town from where the bus had departed.

The lawmaker added that two other buses with migrant workers on board that left from the area, known as Sierra Gorda, heading for the United States also are missing, but the number of people who were traveling on those vehicles is not known.

Press accounts say that the vehicles themselves and their drivers are also missing.

The missing migrants come from poverty-stricken families and had temporary contracts to work in the United States.