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A member of the Mexican security forces stands next to a white minivan with North Carolina plates and several bullet holes at the scene of the crime in Matamoros on Friday.

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A member of the Mexican security forces stands next to a white minivan with North Carolina plates and several bullet holes at the scene of the crime in Matamoros on Friday.

STR/AP

Mexican authorities say two of the Americans who were kidnapped last week have been found dead and two others alive.

Americo Villareal Anaya, the governor of the state of Tamaulipas — where the group was ambushed at gunpoint on Friday — confirmed the news in a phone call with Mexican President Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Tuesday morning.

He said that one of the survivors was wounded, and that ambulances were “rushing to the area to recover them and offer them medical care.”

The FBI has said the U.S. citizens crossed over into Matamoros, Tamaulipas, from Brownsville, Texas, on Friday, driving a white minivan with North Carolina plates.

The FBI said a gunmen fired upon the passengers before moving them into another vehicle and fleeing the scene, sparking a frantic search by law enforcement agencies in both countries. U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar said “an innocent Mexican citizen” was killed in the attack. The FBI offered a $50,000 reward for their return and the arrest of those involved.

Officials had little to share about the victims’ condition and whereabouts on Monday, though some hinted that the group had crossed the border either to buy medicines or undergo medical procedures.

Zalandria Brown told the Associated Press that her brother, Zindell, and two friends had accompanied a third friend to Mexico for a procedure known as a tummy tuck.

“This is like a bad dream you wish you could wake up from,” she said. “To see a member of your family thrown in the back of a truck and dragged, it is just unbelievable.”

Mexican officials now say the group was caught in the crossfire of rival cartel groups, the AP reports.

Many parts of Mexico have been terrorized by fights between feuding drug cartels for years, and the state of Tamaulipas in particular is considered one of the country’s most violent areas.

The U.S. State Department advises Americans not to travel to the state due to crime and kidnapping, noting that criminal groups there are prone to targeting public and private passenger vehicles, “often taking passengers and demanding ransom payments.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.