ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION)
Mexican troops have rescued 165 people, mostly Central Americans, including children and pregnant mothers, held hostage by a gunman in Mexico's far north, the government said on Thursday (June 6).
According to police, the group of would-be immigrants, primarily from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, hoped to cross into the United States from the volatile northern state of Tamaulipas. They were captured in batches two to three weeks ago and held in a house.
There was also an Indian national among the group.
"Mexican army troops found a group of 165 people on this property, of different nationalities, among them seven girls and boys who said they had been kidnapped by the armed individual and that they had been deprived of their freedom in precarious, dirty and overcrowded conditions during a period of two or three weeks previous to this date," government security spokesman Eduardo Sanchez said.
Sanchez explained that rel