National Guard and State Police remove Frenchmen from the blockade in Oaxaca

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Oaxaca de Juarez, January 17. After more than eight hours of being detained on the trans-isthmian highway, elements of the National Guard transfer in their official units the 33 Frenchmen who were stranded in the blockade that residents of Puente Madera, belonging to the municipality of San Blas Atempa, in the region of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, maintained for the arrest of David Hernández Salazar, leader and activist against the construction of the CIIT.

The Frenchmen who are on a tour in the country left Mexico City bound for San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, however, around 8 in the morning, when driving on federal highway 185 at the by the community of Puente Madera, belonging to the municipality of San Blas Atempa, were unable to continue their journey due to the road blockade by the residents.

The tourists with their heavy suitcases walked past the blockade and were transferred from the tourist bus of the “Papaya Maya” Travel Agency to the National Guard vans that took them to Juchitán de Zaragoza, to board a new bus that will take them to your destiny.

Through a statement, the head of internal politics in Oaxaca, Jesús Romero López, denied that the French tourist were being held by the residents of the Puente Madera community.

He explained that the bus in which a group of 33 French citizens, a guide of the same nationality, a Mexican guide and the operator of the motor unit were left stranded on the road due to the closure of the communication route after the Oaxaca State Attorney General’s Office executed an arrest warrant against the male person identified with the initials D.H.S., for different crimes committed in the Tehuantepec Isthmus region.

The state official stressed that personnel from the agency boarded the bus to ask French citizens to remain calm and inform them that in a few more hours the road blockade could be removed, and they could continue their journey. They have also been provided with food and water.

However, this was not possible given the refusal of the residents to remove the blockade, so the federal guards guarded the tourists to cross the blockade with their suitcases and on the other side the units of the National Guard and State Police took them to Juchitán de Zaragoza, where they will board another bus that will take them to their destination in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas.

Source: Eje Central