Guatemalan authorities are mobilizing to care for and provide temporary shelter to the nearly 600 Mexicans who are fleeing the violence that is invading their towns in Chiapas and seeking refuge in the neighboring country. In recent hours, forced recruitment by cartels fighting over that territory has forced dozens of families to cross the southern border of Mexico and change country. Organized crime, which has been taking over these towns for months, is displacing the population, who previously sought shelter in neighboring municipalities, but are now leaving for Guatemala. The crisis has not yet found a known reaction from the Mexican authorities. Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo has been in charge of reporting the exodus of Mexicans.
Since Tuesday, residents of Amatenango de la Frontera and Mazapa de Madero, among others, have been on the move in response to the escalation of the war between cartels, which now forces them to set up roadblocks and work for them. The Sinaloa cartel (los Chapitos) and the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel are in open war over an area that has now become lucrative for them due to migrant trafficking. The head of the Human Rights Commission in Chiapas, Juan Manuel Zardain, explains that the Chapitos were mainly involved in drugs, with no extortions or kidnappings having been detected, but the Jalisco cartel, he says, “has different codes and tries to recruit people by force, in addition to extorting them with floor fees.”
Migrant trafficking is out of control in this mountainous border area. Cartels have threatened bus companies not to sell tickets to foreigners, so that the business remains entirely in their hands, Zardain explains. They transport them to central Mexico, he says. “They are taking over illegal businesses, but also legal ones, such as selling eggs,” says the human rights officer, who explains that there are no customs controls in these mountainous territories through which buses with trafficked migrants circulate.
The war between the two criminal gangs has recently brought to Chiapas a violence that was previously unknown in one of the most peaceful territories of Mexico. This is not the first time that population exoduses have occurred, but this latest massive departure is causing a crisis that could become diplomatic. The Guatemalan authorities complain of the inaction of the Mexican government and security agents, in the face of the displacement of entire families with children and elderly people who are being welcomed on the other side of the border, in a town called Cuilco. “Regrettably, the Mexican authorities are not protecting their citizens,” said the governor of the department of Huehuetenango, Elsa Hernández, who has requested material support, humanitarian aid, shelters, medicines, although she said that the safety of the Mexicans is guaranteed. The government delegation in that country also requested clothing and food.
Thousands of Mexicans who seek the U.S. border each year are fleeing violence, not just poor economic conditions, but this jump south was unprecedented and has caused surprise. Residents have reported in local media that they were threatened with rifles and that this violence forced them to walk through the mountains and take dirt roads to skirt the Grijalva River that separates the border with Guatemala. Others left in vehicles, but the crossfire forced them all to escape with only a few belongings. Some were in transit for 10 hours.
At the same time that the people of Chiapas are fleeing their homes, a caravan with thousands of Central American migrants is leaving Tapachula towards the north, seeking to advance through Mexico to the United States. Chiapas is experiencing unprecedented moments of tension with the crossed migratory tensions.
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