Mexico City – Seventy-five people - including three women - who were allegedly being held against their will at an alcohol-rehabilitation center and crammed into a small room were rescued by agents from the Mexican capital's District Attorney's Office.
Responding to a request from the Mexico City Human Rights Commission, a group of agents went Tuesday to the rehab center for recovering alcoholics known as Aprendiendo a Vivir (Learning to Live), where they found 72 men and three women in poor health and in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, the DA's office said.
The 75 people were suffering from dermatitis and three of them "had lesions of recent origin," the prosecutor's office said.
"All of them were sleeping in a room measuring five meters (16 feet) by five meters, some on them on top of others. Several of them said they were in the place against their will."
Each member of the group was being charged 250 pesos (about $20) a month, as well as a separate weekly room-and-board fee.
The president of the rehabilitation center, 32-year-old Luis Genaro Garcia Alvarez, and one of the employees, 40-year-old Juan Carlos Hernandez Luna, were arrested on kidnapping charges.
The rescued persons were handed over to a special DA's office unit for medical and psychological care.
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