Between December 2018 and November 2019, almost 35 thousand people were killed in Mexico. The past was the most violent year in the country, after the Mexican Revolution. During this wave of rising violence, some geographical points are especially symbolic on the crime map such as Ciudad Juárez, Tijuana, Acapulco or Guanajuato.
But little is said about Tecomán, a municipality where the combination of geographical location, poverty, lack of opportunities, impunity and high rates of drug addiction has made it the most violent in the country.
“In this cursed town one is already used to the dead, every day, at all hours and everywhere,” says Verónica Carreón, aunt of a young woman who was killed during Christmas. In Tecomán violence is breathed in the air and dominates all conversations, fear has shaped the life of this town in which, from January to October 2019, 542 intentional homicides occurred per 100,000 inhabitants, which exceeds the national average of 68 murders per 100,000 people.
In addition, Tecomán has another chilling figure: the authorities have located 71 clandestine graves. "Sometimes it makes me nervous," says Esmeralda Serrano, sister of a missing young woman, who says that in that town "anywhere it feels as if you are walking on a pit."
Julio Vaqueiro talks with Albinson Linares and Diana Baptista about this place that is talked about so little but that represents a microcosm of violence in Mexico. Listen to the podcast here.