Search for US citizens kidnapped in northern Mexico

Mexican authorities are searching for four U.S. citizens reported by the FBI as kidnapped in the border city of Matamoros after gunmen opened fire on the vehicle in which they were traveling.

They are believed to have crossed into Mexico from Texas last week to buy medicine but were 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 on Friday shortly after entering the city of Matamoros from Brownsville, the southernmost tip of Texas near the Gulf coast, the FBI said in a statement Sunday.
The scene illustrates the terror that has prevailed for years in Matamoros, a city dominated by factions of the Gulf cartel who often fight among themselves.

Photographs from the scene show a white minivan with the driver’s side window shot out and all of the doors open, sitting on the side of a street after apparently colliding with a red SUV.
Amid the violence, thousands of Mexicans have disappeared just in Tamaulipas state, where Matamoros is located.
Shootouts in Matamoros were so bad on Friday that the U.S. Consulate issued an alert about the danger.

Local authorities warned people to shelter in place.
It was not immediately clear how the abductions may have been connected to that violence.
The State Department warns U.S. citizens not to travel to Tamaulipas.

However, being a border city, U.S. citizens who live in Brownsville or elsewhere in Texas frequently cross to visit family, attend medical appointments or shop.

For years, a night out in the city was part of the “two-nation vacation” for spring breakers flocking to Texas’ South Padre Island.

But increased cartel violence over the past 10 to 15 years frightened away much of that business.
Sometimes U.S. citizens are swept up in the fighting.