A road trip to Mex­i­co for cos­met­ic surgery end­ed with two Amer­i­cans dead — and two oth­ers found alive in a rur­al area near the Gulf coast — af­ter a vi­o­lent shootout and ab­duc­tion that was cap­tured on video, of­fi­cials said Tues­day.

The sur­viv­ing Amer­i­cans were back on U.S. soil af­ter be­ing sped to the bor­der near Brownsville, the south­ern­most tip of Texas, in a con­voy of am­bu­lances and SU­Vs es­cort­ed by Mex­i­can mil­i­tary Humvees and Na­tion­al Guard trucks with mount­ed .50-cal­iber ma­chine guns.

A rel­a­tive of one of the vic­tims said Mon­day that the four had trav­elled to­geth­er from the Car­oli­nas so one of them could get a tum­my tuck from a doc­tor in the Mex­i­can bor­der city of Mata­moros, where Fri­day’s kid­nap­ping took place.

Irv­ing Bar­rios, Tamauli­pas state’s top pros­e­cu­tor, con­firmed the two Amer­i­cans were turned over to U.S. au­thor­i­ties at the in­ter­na­tion­al bridge to Brownsville, Texas. They were then tak­en to Val­ley Re­gion­al Med­ical Cen­ter with an FBI es­cort, ac­cord­ing to the Brownsville Her­ald. A spokesper­son for the hos­pi­tal re­ferred all in­quiries to the FBI.

The U.S. cit­i­zens were found in a rur­al area east of Mata­moros called Eji­do Lon­goreño on the way to the Gulf coast known as “Bag­dad Beach,” ac­cord­ing to a Mex­i­can state law en­force­ment of­fi­cial. He spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause he was not au­tho­rized to pub­licly dis­cuss the case. Word of their lo­ca­tion came to au­thor­i­ties be­fore dawn Tues­day.

It was not im­me­di­ate­ly clear if the two bod­ies were al­so be­ing re­turned to the U.S. In an­nounc­ing the Amer­i­cans had been found, Tamauli­pas Gov. Améri­co Vil­lar­real did not pro­vide de­tails on the ex­tent of the wound­ed per­son’s in­juries.

Gunmen kidnapped four U.S. citizens who crossed into Mexico from Texas last week to buy medicine and got caught in a shootout. [Map courtesy Associated Press]

Short­ly af­ter en­ter­ing Mex­i­co, the four were caught amid fight­ing be­tween ri­val car­tel groups in the city. Video and pho­tographs tak­en dur­ing and im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the ab­duc­tion show the Amer­i­cans’ white mini­van sit­ting be­side an­oth­er ve­hi­cle, with at least one bul­let hole in the dri­ver’s side win­dow. A wit­ness said the two ve­hi­cles had col­lid­ed. Al­most im­me­di­ate­ly, sev­er­al men in tac­ti­cal vests and tot­ing as­sault ri­fles ar­rived in an­oth­er ve­hi­cle to sur­round the scene.

The gun­men walked one of the Amer­i­cans in­to the bed of a white pick­up, then dragged and loaded the three oth­ers. Ter­ri­fied dri­vers sat silent­ly in their cars, hop­ing not to draw their at­ten­tion. Two of the vic­tims ap­peared to be mo­tion­less.

Of­fi­cials said a Mex­i­can woman al­so died in Fri­day’s cross­fire.

The shoot­ings il­lus­trate the ter­ror that has pre­vailed for years in Mata­moros, a city dom­i­nat­ed by fac­tions of the pow­er­ful Gulf drug car­tel who of­ten fight among them­selves. Amid the vi­o­lence, thou­sands of Mex­i­cans have dis­ap­peared in Tamauli­pas state alone.

Vil­lar­real con­firmed the deaths by phone dur­ing a morn­ing news con­fer­ence by Mex­i­can Pres­i­dent An­drés Manuel López Obrador, say­ing de­tails about the four ab­duct­ed Amer­i­cans had been con­firmed by pros­e­cu­tors.

López Obrador said one per­son was in cus­tody.

“Those re­spon­si­ble will be found and they are go­ing to be pun­ished,” the pres­i­dent said. He ref­er­enced ar­rests made in the 2019 killings of nine U.S.-Mex­i­can dual cit­i­zens in Sono­ra near the U.S. bor­der.

He com­plained about the U.S. me­dia’s cov­er­age of the miss­ing Amer­i­cans, ac­cus­ing them of sen­sa­tion­al­ism. “It’s not like that when they kill Mex­i­cans in the Unit­ed States, they go qui­et, like mum­mies.”

“It’s very un­for­tu­nate, they (the U.S. gov­ern­ment) has the right to protest like they have,” López Obrador said. “We re­al­ly re­gret that this hap­pens in our coun­try.”

U.S. At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Mer­rick Gar­land ex­pressed his sym­pa­thy for the fam­i­lies of the vic­tims.

“The car­tels are re­spon­si­ble for the deaths of Amer­i­cans,” Gar­land said. “The DEA and the FBI are do­ing every­thing pos­si­ble to dis­man­tle and dis­rupt and ul­ti­mate­ly pros­e­cute the lead­ers of the car­tels and the en­tire net­works that they de­pend on.”

He would not con­firm the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment’s re­ports that the two U.S. cit­i­zens had died.

White House Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil spokesper­son John Kir­by said the U.S. is work­ing with Mex­i­can of­fi­cials to learn more about the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the killings.

“At­tacks on U.S cit­i­zens are un­ac­cept­able, no mat­ter where, un­der what cir­cum­stances they oc­cur,” Kir­by said.

The FBI had of­fered a $50,000 re­ward for the vic­tims’ re­turn and the ar­rest of the kid­nap­pers.

Robert Williams said in a tele­phone in­ter­view that his broth­er, 38-year-old Er­ic Williams, was among the kid­napped Amer­i­cans. The broth­ers are from South Car­oli­na but now live in the Win­ston-Salem area of North Car­oli­na, he said.

Williams de­scribed his broth­er as “easy-go­ing” and “fun-spir­it­ed.”

He didn’t know his broth­er was trav­el­ing to Mex­i­co un­til af­ter the ab­duc­tion hit the news. But from look­ing at his broth­er’s Face­book posts, he thinks his broth­er did not con­sid­er the trip dan­ger­ous.

“He thought it would be fun,” Williams said. He hadn’t heard any­thing about his broth­er’s where­abouts, he said. —CIU­DAD VIC­TO­RIA, Mex­i­co (AP)

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Sto­ry by AL­FRE­DO PEÑA | As­so­ci­at­ed Press. AP writ­ers Lind­say White­hurst and Aamer Mad­hani in Wash­ing­ton and Travis Loller in Nashville con­tributed to this re­port.