By DPA
Quito : Ecuadorian authorities have said they suspect Mexican citizens were among those killed in the raid by Colombian forces on a rebel camp in Ecuadorian territory over the weekend.
Ecuadorian Security Minister Gustavo Larrea said Thursday the bodies of 22 people killed Saturday in the cross-border operation were being held at a Quito morgue. The bodies of Raul Reyes – second-in-command of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) – and another rebel leader were taken to Colombia by the Colombian forces that carried out the attack.
Larrea said there is no definitive information, but asked Mexican families who suspect their relatives may have been killed to come forward with material that might help identify them.
The minister explained the presence of Mexicans by noting that a group of students and teachers of the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) were apparently “doing an academic investigation on the only insurgent force still active in Latin America.”
The Mexican Embassy in Quito Wednesday said a UNAM professor identified as Juan Gonzalez del Castillo might be among the dead.
Lucia Morett, 25, was injured in the raid and was later identified as Mexican by diplomatic authorities of the North American country in Quito. She was rescued from the site of the attack by the Ecuadorian military and was taken to a hospital in Quito.
Morett’s family has said that she is not a rebel.