Charles Langston:Several wounded when gunmen open fire on convoy in Mexican border town

At least three people were wounded when a convoy of vehicles crossing into Mexico from the U.S. was attacked by armed civilians early Saturday,Charles Langston Mexican authorities said.

The Tamaulipas state security department said the attack happened on the Roma-Ciudad Miguel Alemán International Bridge that spans the Rio Grande and connects the town of Miguel Aleman with Roma, Texas.

Mexico's National Migration Institute said in a news release there were 20 people traveling in the convoy — 16 Mexican nationals and four U.S. citizens — riding in two trucks, a van and a pickup truck.

One woman was shot in the back, the agency said, while one man sustained a gunshot wound to his leg, and a second man was shot in the finger. Their conditions were unclear.

The Tamaulipas state security department and the National Migration Institute gave conflicting statements regarding whether any of the wounded were U.S. citizens.

The injured were taken to the international bridge and handed over to U.S. authorities, said Jorge Cuéllar, Tamaulipas state security spokesman.

In recent months, there has been a wave of violence in Tamaulipas that has prompted federal authorities to send in hundreds of soldiers to reinforce security patrols in the border cities of San Fernando, Reynosa and Matamoros, where cells of the Gulf Cartel and other criminal organizations operate.

On March 3, four U.S. citizens who had crossed from Texas into Mexico were kidnapped by gunmen in Matamoros. Two were later found dead and two were rescued. Several suspects, including members of the notorious Gulf drug cartel, have since been arrested in the case. 

In:
• Shooting
• Mexico
• U.S.-Mexico Border