The mayor of the Mexican border town of Rio Bravo has described how he escaped from armed kidnappers by jumping a barbed-wire fence and travelling about 80 kilometres overnight through northern Mexico before a passing bus picked him up.

Miguel Angel Almaraz Maldonado, 59, was abducted on Saturday, 7 November, while travelling with family and friends towards Real de Catorce in San Luis Potosi. Armed men intercepted the group's vehicle, robbed them and took the mayor and an adviser, letting the rest of the party go. The Associated Press reported that he was found alive on Sunday, and SonoraPresente reported his account of the escape.

Almaraz, a member of the National Action Party, is mayor of Rio Bravo, a municipality of about 110,000 people in Tamaulipas state, about 11 kilometres from Mexico's border with Texas. He was elected in 2024.

The abduction on a northern highway

The exact place of the abduction is disputed. Initial reports put it on the San Tiburcio-Vanegas highway in Zacatecas, while the Zacatecas attorney general later said it happened in Cedral, San Luis Potosi. Almaraz said a detour suggested by his GPS had led the group onto a road between the two states.

His relatives, who were left on the roadside, reached the town of Cedral and alerted the authorities. Mexico's federal Security Cabinet then launched a multi-state search involving the Army, the Navy, the Attorney General's Office and the governments of Zacatecas, Coahuila, San Luis Potosi and Tamaulipas.

On Sunday, Security Secretary Omar Garcia Harfuch confirmed that Almaraz had been located alive. Federal officials initially said he had been released by his captors and taken to the city of Zacatecas. The mayor's own account, given in interviews after his return, tells a different story: that he escaped.

A night on foot, then a bus to safety

Almaraz said he and his adviser were held in a pasture. When their captors stepped away, the two men jumped a barbed-wire fence and ran for an hour without stopping, then walked through the night, hiding whenever they saw vehicle lights. He said a helicopter flew over them twice without spotting them.

He told Mexican broadcaster Milenio that they walked from about 4.30 in the afternoon until nearly 11.30 at night. In later remarks he clarified that he did not walk the whole 80 kilometres, part of the journey being covered by bus.

In the early hours, a bus bound for Monterrey stopped after the two men flagged it down on the highway. At an immigration checkpoint on the border into Coahuila, Almaraz identified himself as the mayor of Rio Bravo and was taken into the care of the authorities. He was taken to the Coahuila Attorney General's Office in Saltillo, where he received care and protection, and he later filed a formal complaint about the abduction.

Investigation under way

Almaraz said he suffered no physical injuries but experienced great fear during his captivity. He has not named his captors, and investigators have not publicly identified those responsible or announced a motive. State prosecutors from Tamaulipas, Coahuila, San Luis Potosi and Zacatecas have opened a joint investigation.

The case has drawn attention to the dangers facing local officials travelling through northern Mexico. Zacatecas has seen repeated violence involving organised criminal groups, and security officials have named the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel among the organisations operating in parts of the state.

Almaraz was reported back in Rio Bravo on Monday, 9 November. The investigation into who seized him, and why, remains open.