Mexico’s latest kidnapping: Two Americans rescued from drug cartel safehouse are named after Matamoros attack

Kidnapping survivor LaTavia McGee’s mother Barbara Burgess said she was worried about her daughter leaving and warned her it might not be safe. But her daughter brushed off her worries and told her, “Mom, I’ll be fine”.

Ms Burgess last heard from Ms McGee on Friday when she called to say they were only 15 minutes from the cosmetic surgeon’s office where she was to have the procedure that day. She never heard from her daughter again.

Burgess said she tried to call McGee later that day, but her phone went straight to voicemail.

Not long after, she said she was visited by an FBI agent and revealed what had happened.

Ms. McGee and Erick James Williams survived the attack, while Shaeed Woodard Zindell Brown and were killed

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby also condemned the attack on the American citizens and promised to get justice for their families.

“We appreciate the hard work of the Department of Justice, the FBI and the DEA and the Department of Homeland Security … we are grateful for their quick response to this horrific incident and for their continued cooperation with Mexican authorities,” Kirby told reporters.

“We will work closely with the Mexican government to ensure justice is served in this case.”

Asked if the White House was considering policy changes in response to the attack, Kirby said there was no immediate action but insisted U.S. authorities are working hard to get the bodies of the fatal victim and the survivors back on American soil.

Four US citizens who were assaulted and kidnapped at gunpoint Mexico have been found – two of them alive and two dead, according to officials.

Here’s everything we know about the attack:

National Security Committee Coordinator John Kirby condemned the attack on the American citizens and promised to get justice for their families.

“We appreciate the hard work of the Department of Justice, the FBI and the DEA and the Department of Homeland Security … we are grateful for their quick response to this horrific incident and for their continued cooperation with Mexican authorities,” Kirby said.

“We will work closely with the Mexican government to ensure justice is served in this case.”

US officials familiar with the investigation said CNN that authorities believe a Mexican cartel mistook the victims for Haitian drug traffickers.

The FBI, Justice Department and State Department are working with Mexican authorities to determine what happened. At least one person has already been arrested, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reacted to the development at his morning press conference.

“We continue to work every day for peace and are very sorry that this has happened in our country,” he said.

“We send our condolences to the friends and family of the victims and the American people. And we will continue to work for peace.”

The four Americans kidnapped in Matamoros were taken to different places by the people who held them hostage, Tamaulipas Governor Americo Villareal said at a press conference on Tuesday.

At one point, they were held in a clinic, Villareal said.

Mexican state and local authorities returned the victims to the FBI at the Mexican border in Brownsville, Texas, on Tuesday.

The group had traveled to the Mexican state for one of them to have a tummy tuck. Not long after entering Matamoros – an area dominated by the Gulf cartel – they came under fire from a group of gunmen and were bundled into the back of a pickup truck.

Tamaulipas Governor Americo Villareal said in a press conference on Tuesday that the two American citizens who survived a kidnapping in Matamoros and have since been returned to the United States are Eric Williams and LaTavia McGee.

Williams was injured while McGee was found unharmed.

Mr Villareal said a suspect, 24-year-old Jose N, has been arrested. The man was tasked with making sure the victims didn’t get away and he was caught at the scene.