“Nothing is going to happen to you, don’t worry, we are not going to torture you,” were the words that the kidnappers of the Jalisco cartel, in Mexico, repeated over and over again to their eleven hostages captured on November 14. The phrase still resonates in the mind of Ana Gabriela Nicaragua, a former Nicaraguan politician, who was one of the victims of the kidnapping, while trying to reach the United States in search of asylum; fleeing the persecution and criminalization led by the Ortega Murillo regime.
Ana Gabriela left Nicaragua on November 3, along with her partner and son, irregularly through the El Espino border area. He affirms that he did not have the economic resources to leave, but the siege, harassment and threats of a new criminalization made him decide “to leave with what little they had.”
In seven days, the released political prisoner traveled through Honduras, Guatemala and part of Mexico, until on November 14, at night, she was kidnapped along with her partner and son, six other Nicaraguans and two Hondurans with whom she was making her journey. to US territory.
“We are mobilizing for Villa Hermosa, Tabasco, and the Jalisco cartel kidnaps us. Lots of men armed to the teeth; Hooded, with bulletproof vests, with the coat of arms of Mexico on their uniforms, with high-caliber weapons, violent, they stop the vehicles in which we were going, intimidate the drivers, they lower us, and take us to a warehouse ”, says the released prisoner Nicaraguan politician in interview with CONFIDENTIAL.
He explains that, upon reaching the warehouse, the kidnappers stripped them of all their belongings; cell phones, clothes, money, anything of value that interested them.
“We were all crying, the children too, all very nervous, when they took us to a room in the cellar and asked us to remove absolutely everything. They went through everything and started taking our belongings from us; They took my cell phone and 1, 960 dollars, while we were intimidated by many armed men, with machetes, with special torture bats, large and heavy, “he explained.
Physical and psychological torture
Ana Gabriela reported that she and the other ten people with whom she was kidnapped were not beaten or physically tortured, but they did suffer five days of “psychological torture”.
They affirm that in one of the warehouses where they were detained, during those five days of kidnapping, they witnessed various physical torture suffered by some men, who they did not identify, who were taking them to those places.
“The first day they took us to one of the wineries, they arrived with a man, who was not from our group, and they began to torture him; They grabbed him by the neck, handcuffed him and paid him so hard that his screams could be heard like roars throughout the warehouse, making us all tremble with fear and suffer each of those blows with him, ”he says.
After the first 24 hours, things got worse. Ana Gabriela reports that another man, who they could not identify either, was taken to the winery and was brutally beaten. “The torture was so brutal that with a machete they cut off all the fingers of his hand in front of us. The suffering was such that the man even asked to be killed, to be shot in the head, because he could no longer bear it ”, he details.
The released prisoner points out that, ironically, every time they witnessed these tortures, the kidnappers approached the group to emphasize that “we should not worry, that nothing was going to happen to us, that they were not going to torture us, even though we were already victims of psychological torture because with that they told us that if we did not do what they wanted in the end, that was going to happen to us ”.
Relatives paid $ 5,000 ransom
Ana Gabriela indicates that, after witnessing the torture of the second man, a person who appeared to be “the boss” of the kidnappers arrived at the warehouse. He took each of the adults their respective cell phones, ordering them to unlock them and call a family member, asking them for help in obtaining payment for their freedom.
“They asked us a rate of one million Mexican pesos for the group, about 50,000 dollars, for the 11 that we went. Each one, including the children, had to pay $ 5,000 to be released, but the amount had to be raised in full. otherwise no one left ”, he says.
The kidnappers did not allow any of the people to report the kidnapping or give any details about it. Every time they were allowed to contact their families, to press for the money, they did so under supervision, to prevent them from giving any details, since they were only authorized to “ask for help” to collect the money.
Ana Gabriela -unlike the others- decided not to call her family, not only to avoid worrying them, but also because she is people with limited economic resources and she wanted to prevent them from feeling worse in case it was impossible for them to raise the money .
“I wrote to a friend from the UPPN (Union of Political Prisoners and Prisoners of Nicaragua), I told her not to ask me for explanations, that I needed them to help me get $ 5,000,” he says.
He emphasizes that his call for help, for help to raise the money, was attended by few people. His friends from the organization only managed to raise about $ 1,000 and his partner’s family, who had already “sold everything” to be able to pay the $ 10,000 fee for the child and Ana Gabriela’s partner, sought a loan with him. that helped him raise the $ 5,000.
The released political prisoner details that, after making them ask their relatives for help, the kidnappers transferred them to another warehouse, where there were around 30 more people who were in the same conditions.
Most of the victims managed to get the 5,000 dollars after the completion of the first four days of the kidnapping. However, the kidnappers intensified the threats of torture against those who did not comply with the specifications of the payments they demanded.
“The threats against my partner began, because it happened that the person who sent the money did not show the entire voucher. They threatened her saying that they were going to torture her in the same way that they tortured the men we saw in the first warehouse, they showed her the torture bat, they told her that they were going to crush her fingers and cut her hand and only left to do so until they sent the voucher as they wanted ”, he complains.
Released in a park
Five days after the kidnapping, on November 18, the kidnapped group collected the amount demanded by the subjects and they proceeded to order them to enlist because “they are leaving.”
“They put our suitcases in the vehicle that they were going to transfer us and they took us to the first warehouse, we were all scared to death when we saw those same armed people who tortured, and there they gave us cell phones. They did not return money to us and they stole the cell phone of my partner’s son, they made us wait and then they told us that they were going to transfer us, ”explained Ana Gabriela.
The politically released prisoner, her two relatives and a Honduran woman were released in a park in Villa Hermosa, the other six Nicaraguans were left in another park in the same city, and the other Honduran was left in a soccer field. One of the Hondurans decided to separate from the group.
“We were in that park for two hours. We did not know what to do, we did not have money, cell phones were about to go off and we were still in an area governed by the cartel, ”said Nicaragua.
The ten who decided to stay together agreed to continue the journey. They stayed for a few days in a hotel in Villa Hermosa and later they looked for a safer place.
Ana Gabriela affirmed to CONFIDENTIAL that, despite all the economic difficulties they were going through in Mexico and all the horrors they experienced along the way, he decided to continue the journey – along with his two relatives – because he cannot return to Nicaragua, since in this country “the jail”.
On November 25, Nicaragua and the relatives with whom he was traveling arrived at the United States border and surrendered to the immigration authorities of that country, he confirmed to CONFIDENTIAL the released political prisoner Yaritza Rostrán, a member of the UPPN. In addition, he indicated that for now they only know that he is in a detention center for Migrants.
