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Jewish sect in Mexico escape from detention after police raid


HUIXTLA, Mexico, Sept 29 (Reuters) - A group of about 20 members of a fundamentalist Jewish sect escaped from a Mexican detention center in the southern state of Chiapas on Wednesday night, according to a Reuters reporter who filmed the incident.


The group were being held by Mexico's National System for Integral Family Development, or DIF, following a raid by Mexican police on Friday that targeted Lev Tahor - a strict Jewish sect that practices arranged marriages and full-body coverings for girls as young as three.


The sect is estimated to consist of about 200 to 300 people and rejects the state of Israel.


Neither the DIF nor the office of Mexico's Attorney General's office responded to requests to comment on the case.


Mexican authorities indict 26 members of the Lev Tahor sect


Mexican authorities raided a compound occupied by the extremist Jewish sect Lev Tahor along the Guatemalan border and rescued a three-year-old boy whose father had escaped from the sect, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.


Friday's raid was carried out in the town of Tapachula, in southeastern Mexico, with the participation of dozens of local law enforcement and social workers. The operation was approved following an investigation by Mexican authorities which found evidence of involvement of cult members in human trafficking, rape, drug trafficking and other serious offences.



Members of the Lev Tahor sect escape from Mexican custody


Almost twenty children and adults from the Lev Tahor extremist sect have escaped from a center in Chiapas , where they were detained, as shown in images to which EL PAÍS has had access. The group of worshipers was in the custody of Mexican authorities after a raid on an ultra-Orthodox community camp near the Guatemalan border last week. The National System for the Integral Development of Families (DIF), the institution responsible for the facilities, has not commented on the incident.


In the images, boys and girls, dressed in the sect's characteristic costumes (dark suits for men and tunics that cover women from head to toe), are seen leaving the DIF care center in Huixtla, a Chiapas community. about 50 kilometers from the border with Guatemala. In the videos, the minors are shown walking together outside the facilities, while in other recordings released by the local press, some are seen directly pushing the guards who were at the entrance and getting into vans. The events occurred early this Thursday.



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