Police take preschoolers off Nuevo Laredo streets after parents kidnapped

By Miguel Timoshenkov
Published: 08:38 p.m., Wednesday, February 2, 2011

NUEVO LAREDO — Twenty-five children, most of them preschoolers, were found early Tuesday wandering city streets in unsafe parts of the city with no idea of where they were or what had happened to their parents.

The children, whose parents are believed to have been kidnapped, were found in three separate groups in separate parts of the city beginning at 11:20 p.m. Monday and ending at 6:20 a.m. Tuesday.

Some of the children, ranging in age from 1 to 14 years old, were found barefoot on a major boulevard in the pre-dawn hours. Wednesday, 23 of the 25 were in a government children's shelter, the whereabouts of their parents still unknown.

Federal authorities confirmed that at least 10 people were kidnapped late Monday night and early Tuesday and officers are investigating the possibility that they are the missing parents of the abandoned children.

Two of the children have been returned to their grandparents, officials said. A report that three other children had been claimed by their parents who had been released by their captors could not be confirmed Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the local Human Rights Commission urged DIF, the agency responsible for the welfare of children and families, not to release the remaining children to their parents unless the children's safety could be independently assured.

“It is highly likely that their parents were kidnapped,â€