Mexico: Coronavirus rumors spark violence

A town hall and several buildings were attacked Thursday during a wave of violence in an indigenous village in Mexico, following rumors about the coronavirus spread on Facebook, local authorities said. "About thirty people, 30 vulgar delinquents tried to deceive people in Venustiano Carranza by making them believe that the problem of Covid-19 did not exist" , declared the governor of the state of Chiapas (south), Rutilio Escandón, in a video broadcast on social networks.

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At the origin of this attack on the town hall, a commercial premises and three houses, affirmations on Facebook, relayed by local media, according to which "the coronavirus does not exist" and that a drone had been shot down Sunday whereas 'he spread a white powder drying the lungs. This text, full of political allusions, then evoked a "chemical attack" sponsored by the regional authorities against the Tzotzil ethnic group.

It is not the first wave of violence recorded in Mexico since the start of the epidemic. Other disturbances took place in localities located in the states of Michoacán (west) and Oaxaca (south) during disinfection operations. With 120 million inhabitants, Mexico is the second country in Latin America with the highest number of deaths after Brazil, which records more than 9,000 deaths.