The federal Security Secretariat reported on Tuesday the discovery of 19 bodies in a town near La Concordia, in Chiapas, apparently victims of a confrontation between criminal groups. In a statement, the agency said that 14 of the bodies were in “the back of a dump truck,” two more in the cabin, and three lying on the floor, next to the vehicle. All were men and had gunshot wounds. For its part, the Chiapas Prosecutor’s Office has increased the count to 20. The authorities found the bodies because the attackers themselves boasted about the massacre in a video posted on social media.
“On June 28, a video was released showing several dead people in the back of a dump truck, wearing tactical gear and carrying long weapons,” the department said. “The alleged perpetrators of the filming identify themselves as members of the Sinaloa Cartel and point to the victims as members of a criminal organization that allegedly operates between Chiapas and Guatemala. On June 29, a call was received at 911 reporting the presence of dead people on a stretch of dirt road that connects Jaltenango de la Paz with the La Reforma ranch, in the municipality of La Concordia,” it added.
This Tuesday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador referred to the matter in his morning press conference. “It was a regrettable confrontation in Chiapas, in the border area. There are two groups that are fighting, this has been going on for some time. The population of the region is being protected. There are two groups. What motivates this? Drug trafficking and also trafficking of migrants, of people,” he said. “It is a route that unfortunately involves people from Guatemala. In other words, they are Mexicans and Guatemalans,” he added. The Ministry of Security has reported that at least six of the victims were carrying Guatemalan identification.
This massacre is linked to other massacres committed in the area in recent months. In May, criminals murdered six people in the municipality, including Lucero López Maza, a mayoral candidate for the Chiapas Popular Party. It was not clear then whether the murder of the candidate was the result of a direct attack or whether López Maza was the victim of crossfire. Weeks earlier, the candidate’s father, rancher Ataulfo López Flores, had suffered another attack on his ranch at the hands of members of organized crime, who burned his farm, several vehicles and killed four workers.
Even earlier, in April, a massacre and a confrontation between criminals and national guardsmen resulted in the deaths of at least 10 people, in two places near the La Angostura dam, in the same municipality. The government then explained that, first, criminals killed five people on a ranch and then, the next day, agents and criminals clashed near the company, a fight that left another five dead. The human rights organization Fray Bartolomé de las Casas then denounced that the clashes had actually left 25 dead, among them civilians unrelated to the crime.
The latest massacre in La Concordia illustrates the violent drift of crime in various areas of Chiapas, none as hard hit as the corridor formed by the Central Border and the Sierra Mariscal, next to the La Angostura dam. For several years, groups linked to the Sinaloa cartel have been fighting with other organizations for control of the territory and the routes. With the closure of the passage through Tapachula, a classic route for migrants seeking the north, the roads of the Central Border and the Sierra Mariscal, with their complicated orography, have grown in importance for crime. Not only because of the migrants themselves, who are extorted from the moment they set foot in Mexico, but also because of the weapons and drugs that circulate in the area.
In the video that the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection refers to, widely shared on social networks, the voice of a man can be heard speaking next to the dozen or so corpses that have been left in the dump truck. “Look, old man, look at the Guatemalan people, how they ended up in hell here, like 30 bastards in here,” he says, shouting. “This is the breed of Ataulfo’s damn pig. All the reinforcements that Vladimir sent for Ataulfo’s dog. Up La Fea, pure Sinaloa to hell,” he adds. It is not clear if the Ataulfo he mentions is the rancher attacked some time ago in the area. At the end of the video there is a statement signed by the “Guatemala and Chiapas Cartel,” whose affiliation is also not clear.
In the Central Border and the Sierra Mariscal, groups allegedly linked to the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel have been involved in fights and persecutions, beyond La Concordia. In Chicomuselo, somewhat closer to the border, their disputes left 11 dead in mid-May. In many communities, the population has fled, seeking refuge in municipalities outside the conflict zone, such as Comitán or Tuxtla, the state capital. In February, a report by civil associations defined the situation in the area as “an unrecognized armed conflict,” which began in mid-2021.
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