EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The search for two missing Mexican National Guard soldiers continues in a north Juarez area known for migrant smuggling activity.
David Alejandro Gonzalez, 22, and Brandon Garcia Jimenez, 28, went missing last week; their relatives traced their last cellphone location to a street in the Anapra neighborhood called Pez Martillo.
“We are looking for them in coordination with other (law enforcement) agencies. We have not located them,” Chihuahua Deputy Attorney General Carlos Manuel Salas told a KTSM/Border Report camera crew.
Salas acknowledged this is the second time in a year that guard members have gone missing in an area between the Anapra neighborhood abutting the U.S. border wall and the Santa Teresa, New Mexico, port of entry. A year ago, several men with automatic rifles abducted three National Guard members on patrol but let them go hours later.
Anapra and the San Jeronimo area south of Santa Teresa are well-known staging areas for illegal immigration. The U.S. Border Patrol says that is their busiest patrol area in the El Paso Sector for migrants intent on avoiding apprehension.
Salas said he could not speculate why the latest guardsmen were missing. “They were on the job. I don’t know their exact status (with the guard). We are looking for them at the request of the family,” he said.
National Guard patrols could be seen on Thursday scouring the deserted outskirts of Anapra.
A Juarez newspaper on Thursday quoted family members as saying they had found the vehicle last used by Gonzalez and Garcia; it is parked in the customs lot on the Mexican side of the Santa Teresa-San Jeronimo port of entry. The relatives also are asking police to review footage from a security camera on Calle Pez Martillo.
ProVideo in Juarez, Mexico, contributed to this report.
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