Search For Lost Boy Leads To Finding Of 23 Child Slaves

Story ByMaja Mishevksa, Sub EditorMarija StojkoskaAgencyNewsflash

A search for a missing toddler has led to the discovery of 23 children being held by a human trafficking gang and the arrest of three women.

The children were rescued by the police in the municipality of San Cristobal de las Casas in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas during a search for a two-year-old indigenous boy who went missing from a marketplace at the end of June, according to the state attorney general’s office.

Prosecutor Jorge Llaven Abarca said that 23 minors, including three breastfeeding infants and three toddlers aged between 12 and 20 months, were found. The rest of the children were aged between two and 15 years.

CEN/FGE Chiapas

Officers were looking for Dylan Esau Gomez Perez, a two-year-old indigenous boy who was reported as missing on 30th June from a market where his mum had a stall.

Sadly, the missing toddler was not among the 23 children found.

The attorney general’s office said that the rescued children showed signs of physical and psychological violence, and were forced to sell handicrafts in the city centre of San Cristobal.

PCEN/FGE Chiapas

Three women, identified as Maribel, Maria Hortensia and Juana, have been arrested while the young victims were taken into care by the local authorities.

The investigation into the suspected human trafficking ring continues.

Meanwhile, the police are continuing their search for little Dylan Esau.

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