Mexican soldiers locate 10 people fleeing abductors

Soldiers have located 10 people who say they were fleeing their abductors in the embattled state of Guerrero and arrested two suspected gang members, Mexico's government said Sunday.

The mass abduction took place in Cocula, the same municipality where federal authorities say 43 college students initially kidnapped in Iguala were later killed and burned by a drug cartel in September, 2014.

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A statement from the federal government said that soldiers and police were sent to the area in response to rumours that 10 to 15 people had been abducted in Cocula.

The federal forces located seven people who said they had been abducted and were fleeing their kidnappers, then later found six more people in similar conditions. Some presented injuries and dehydration, the statement said. It did not say how they had escaped or were rescued.

The other freed hostages identified three of the people located by soldiers as members of the gang who had abducted them. Two were detained and one was a minor.

On Saturday, there had been conflicting reports about how many were taken and whether some were workers for Media Luna, a Canadian-owned gold mining project in Cocula. But the president of Toronto-based Torex Gold Resources Inc., Fred Stanford, said the reports about his employees being abducted were false.