Migrants riding a cargo train in Mexico (credit: Hermanos en el Camino shelter)

Armed men kidnapped what witness say were at least 60 migrants who were travelling on top if a cargo train through southern Mexico. The incident occurred Friday just before the train rolled into the station at Medias Aguas, Veracruz.

Migrants who escaped the kidnapping attempt told staff at the Brothers on the Road migrant shelter that the conductor stopped the train in an area where armed men were waiting with three Suburban style vehicles. The armed men ordered the migrants to get off of the train and get into the vehicles. Many ran into the surrounding countryside and hid. They eventually made their way back to the shelter in Oaxaca to report the incident.

A statement issued Sunday by the Brothers on the Road shelter said it was the first case of a mass kidnapping they’ve registered in months. The shelter also documented a mass kidnapping in December near the town of Chahuites, Oaxaca. Alejandro Solalinde, the priest who founded the shelter organized a caravan in January to call attention to the dangers migrants face on their trek through Mexico.

Organized crime groups who control the flow of drug through Mexico started kidnapping migrants for ransom a few years ago. Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission estimates at least 20 thousand migrants are kidnapped within Mexico each year.

An editor in the Mexican city of Veracruz has become the latest in a long list of journalists murdered in this hemisphere’s most dangerous country for media workers.

Armed men broke into the home of columnist and editor Miguel Angel Lopez Velasco early Monday morning and killed him along with his wife and 21 year old son, Misael, who had recently started performing photography work. Another son, named Miguel like his father, is a staff photographer at the same newspaper but lives in a separate residence.

While more reporters die violent deaths in Mexico than in any other country in the Americas, it’s not common that they are killed inside their homes with other family members. According to Notiver, the newspaper he co-edited, Miguel Angel Lopez Velsco lived two blocks from a police station.

Two other Mexican reporters have been murdered in recent weeks. Pablo Ruelas Barraza was shot dead June 13th while resisting an apparent kidnapping attempt in the state of Sonora. Some regional coverage of the crime indicated that Ruelas Barraza had spent some time in prison and stated he was  unemployed at the time of his murder.

Noel López Olguín was found in a shallow grave in the state of Veracruz. He had been kidnapped in March.

Another newspaper reporter, Marco Antonio López Ortíz, has been missing since unidentified men kidnapped him earlier this month in the state of Guerrero.

Two political opposition figures were targeted in separate attacks this week as election season here shifts into full gear. In the first incident, Sotico López Quiroz, a municipal-level leader of the center-left PRD party, was shot dead during an ambush as he traveled home from a late night meeting in the Oaxacan coastal town of San Andrés Huaxpaltepec.

Four parties from the political left and right have formed an alliance in Oaxaca to challenge the PRI, a party that has dominated state politics for 8 consecutive decades. This hegemony was a frequent complaint among protesters in the social uprising that gripped the state for much of 2006.

In the neighboring state of Veracruz, a mayoral pre-candidate from the opposition PRD party is in critical condition. Unidentified gunmen opened fire against him and a local PRD organizer Tuesday night. Martín Aburto López reportedly received an anonymous death threat last week warning him to step out of the race.

Voters in both states head to the polls on July 4th.