MEXICO CITY (AP) — Catholic Church leaders in southern Mexico have made a desperate plea for the Mexican government to protect 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 includes parishes near the border with Guatemala, where nearly 600 people fled earlier this week.
Two of Mexico’s most powerful cartels from the northern states of Sinaloa and Jalisco have been battling for control of smuggling routes in the area for more than a year causing multiple displacements.
On Wednesday, Guatemala President Bernardo Arévalo said that his administration was coordinating with the local governments near the Mexican border to attend to the Mexicans “who are escaping conflict between groups that is taking place on the Mexican side.”
A Guatemalan government report obtained by The Associated Press described accounts from the refugees who explained they had abandoned their homes because of a lack 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 government must now also suffer being “hostages in 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 have to use what little money they have to pay for scarce items at elevated prices because the shopkeepers also are being extorted. And between July 20 and 22, the situation worsened as residents were “intimidated, threatened and forced to be human shields in the clashes between drug cartels.”
The letter does not refer specifically to those who fled to Guatemala, but it said that while Mexico’s military and National Guard are present, they do nothing to intervene to protect the communities.
“What do we have to do or say so that the government carries out its duty, at least, to protect and watch out for the security of the communities?” the letter asks.
Mexican authorities have not responded to requests for comment about those who fled to Guatemala or the security situation on the Mexican side of the border.
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