The UK Foreign Office has updated its Mexico travel advice after four Americans were kidnapped.

Two of the Americans have since been found dead.

A Mexican citizen was also killed as they were ambushed.

The FBI has offered a $50,000 reward for information after the four were taken at gunpoint on Friday.

It’s since been confirmed two of the group were found dead and the other two have been taken to American hospitals for treatment. One of the survivors ‘sustained serious injuries’, the FBI said.

A video circulating on social media appears to show the four being loaded into a pickup truck.

Family members say the friends had travelled from South Carolina in a white minivan, crossing the US border from Brownsville, Texas into the city of Matamoros, in the state of Tamaulipas in Mexico.

 The mother of one of the survivors, Latavia ‘Tay’ McGee, told ABC Newsher daughter had been booked in for a tummy tuck at a Mexican clinic.

CNN reports it’s believed the four were mistaken for Haitian drug smugglers and the US State Department has told Americans not to travel to the Tamaulipas region.

The UK FCDO already advises against all-but-essential travel to the state of Tamaulipas, saying it is ‘dangerous due to the presence of many organised crime groups who fight for control of drug trafficking routes’.

The exception is the border crossing at Nuevo Laredo accessed from Monterrey by federal toll road 85D. The FCDO says travellers taking that route should travel during daylight hours.

The FCDO’s advice on travel to the Tamaulipas area says: “There is a risk of armed robbery and kidnap.”

On Tuesday it was updated to say: “On 4 March 2023, four American tourists were kidnapped after being shot at by armed individuals in the town of Matamoros, on the US-Mexico border.”

The advice has since been updated again to say: “In March 2023, two foreign tourists were killed after a group of tourists were kidnapped at gunpoint in Matamoros.”