MEXICO CITY – The Mexican and Honduran foreign ministries have created a high-ranking security committee that will investigate assaults by organized crime syndicates against migrants bound for the United States, officials said.

Honduran Foreign Minister Alden Rivera met this past weekend with Mexican Deputy Foreign Secretary for Latin America and the Caribbean Rubén Beltrán in Mexico City to discuss ways the nations can work together to improve security for migrants, the Mexican foreign relations secretariat said.

Mexico and Honduras will work on improving their communication, security and binational extradition procedures with the intention of including other countries in the initiative, Rivera said, according to EFE.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights reported that about 18,000 migrants were abducted while traveling in Mexico in 2009. The meeting comes after members of the Los Zetas cartel allegedly kidnapped and killed 72 Latino migrants in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas.

[EFE (Mexico), 23/01/2011; Latin American Herald Tribune (Mexico), 23/01/2011]