Catholic Church leaders in southern Mexico have made a desperate plea for the Mexican government to guard communities from drug cartels that extract protection payments and use locals as human shields near the border with Guatemala.
The letter dated Wednesday was signed by Bishop Emeritus Jaime Calderón of the Tapachula Diocese, which incorporates parishes near the border with Guatemala, where nearly 600 people fled earlier this week.
Two of Mexico’s strongest cartels from the northern states of Sinaloa and Jalisco have been battling for control of smuggling routes in the realm for greater than a yr causing multiple displacements.
On Wednesday, Guatemala President Bernardo Arévalo said that his administration was coordinating with the local governments near the Mexican border to take care of the Mexicans “who’re escaping conflict between groups that’s going down on the Mexican side.”
A Guatemalan government report obtained by The Associated Press described accounts from the refugees who explained that they had abandoned their homes due to a scarcity of food and fighting between organized crime groups. They arrived in communities of the Cuilco municipality on Tuesday. Among the 580 people were men, women, children and elderly.
The diocese’s letter says that communities long mired in poverty and ignored by the federal government must now also suffer being “hostages of their communities, paying extortion to the corresponding cartel based on where they live, being forced to take shifts at roadblocks that impede free transit.”
Residents should use what little money they should pay for scarce items at elevated prices since the shopkeepers are also being extorted. And between July 20 and 22, the situation worsened as residents were “intimidated, threatened and compelled to be human shields within the clashes between drug cartels.”
The letter doesn’t refer specifically to those that fled to Guatemala, but it surely said that while Mexico’s military and National Guard are present, they do nothing to intervene to guard the communities.
“What do we’ve got to do or say in order that the federal government carries out its duty, not less than, to guard and be careful for the safety of the communities?” the letter asks.
Mexican authorities haven’t responded to requests for comment about those that fled to Guatemala or the safety situation on the Mexican side of the border.
