Two American siblings have gone missing in northern Mexico just weeks after four US adults were kidnapped after crossing the border, according to the US State Department.
The District Attorney’s office for the Mexican state of Nuevo León issued an Amber Alert for 9-year-old Hugo Yarset Monfort Luna and his 16-year-old sister, Aranza Yosemiti Monfort Luna, on Monday, Fox News reported.
Both children were reported as Americans in the alert.
The siblings were last seen Friday leaving a home in Real de San Felipe, a neighborhood in the municipality of García, outside the city of Monterrey and about 160 miles southwest of the Texas border.
“Because of the circumstances of their disappearance, age and the time passed, the missing minors could find themselves in imminent danger,” the alert said in Spanish, according to Fox.
A spokesperson for the US state department told the outlet Tuesday that it was aware of the reports but would not comment further due to “privacy considerations.”
Mexican prosecutors described the boy as 3 feet, 6 inches tall with dark, straight brown hair and dark brown eyes with a missing tooth on the right side of his mouth. His sister is 5 feet, 2 inches with dark brown hair and a brown spot on her right cheek.
She was last seen in black pants, a pink shirt, long gray sweater and blue sneakers. She also had a black sweater tied around her waist and was carrying a brown handbag, officials said.
The State Department has issued a travel advisory to Americans traveling to Mexico, warning that violent crime is “widespread and common in Mexico.”
“The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in many areas of Mexico, as travel by U.S. government employees to certain areas is prohibited or restricted,” the department advised.
The children’s disappearance comes exactly two weeks after four Americans from South Carolina were kidnapped after driving across the border in Brownsville, Texas, in a minivan.
Zindell Brown and Shaeed Woodard were shot dead after the group was ambushed by members of the notorious Gulf Cartel, who mistook them as Haitian drug smugglers.
Latavia “Tay” McGee and Eric James Williams were found injured but alive in a dingy shack on the outskirts of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, after a four-day search.
Facing pressure for kidnapping the innocent Americans who were seeking cheap plastic surgery, the cartel even handed over some of its members to Mexican authorities.
An estimated 550 American citizens are missing in Mexico – a figure the State Department declined to confirm – as relatives of victims remain frustrated at an apparent lack of action by authorities on both sides of the border to find their loved ones.
On Friday, the FBI offered a $20,000 reward for Maria del Carmen Lopez, 63 — a US citizen who was kidnapped from her residence in Pueblo Nuevo, Colima, on Feb. 9, according to the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office.