The new challenge of the narco to the State: 10 bodies at the gates of the Government Palace of Zacatecas

The van with the bodies is removed by the authorities in Zacatecas.

A few minutes before 5.30 on Thursday, a man left an abandoned gray truck in front of the Zacatecas Government Palace.

He has parked it and ran away.

Inside the vehicle, the authorities have found 10 dead, beaten and injured bodies, as confirmed by the Secretary of Public Safety and Protection.

The macabre gesture puts once again the focus on the violence that has besieged this central Mexican state.

In a message sent early in the morning from the public square where the truck was located, the Morenista governor David Monreal has acknowledged that insecurity has become the main challenge in Zacatecas. "It is a pending issue in our country and in our State," he said. The president has given few details about the new crime hit. The abandoned vehicle is a silver-gray Mazda pickup that drove into the center of the capital at 5.14 a.m. and the driver fled an alley about nine minutes later, according to the C-5 cameras. The Prosecutor's Office is investigating the owner of the car, if there was any previous report of theft about the vehicle, and trying to locate the route of the man who drove it this morning.

Elements of the National Guard guard the vicinity of the Government Palace in the center of Zacatecas.

This morning massacre of Reyes is another reminder of the terror that runs rampant in Zacatecas.

Nine municipalities this year have been left without local police, who resign in terror of the uncontrolled violence, and dozens of bodies have been exhibited tortured on the bridges of entry to several cities.

The State has become the epicenter of violence in Mexico, where drug traffickers proudly display their power.

Monreal recognizes the problem of insecurity, but attributes it to a "cursed inheritance" received from previous governments.

According to data from state authorities, almost 1,200 murders were recorded in 2020, but the number climbed to 1,700 in the last year. To try to stop a burning state, at the end of November, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced the transfer of hundreds of agents and members of the National Guard to Zacatecas. The Mexican Secretary of Defense, Luis Crescencio Sandoval, then insisted on the need to strengthen the heart of the entity, where in recent months the two main cartels in the country, that of Sinaloa and that of Jalisco Nueva Generación, have clashed. Zacatecas is a key point for the drug trafficking of these groups, as it is connected with the main border states and with access to the sea.

That deployment, according to Monreal, was already beginning to be noticed.

"We had a good end of the year, in December all crime and homicide rates fell, and in kidnapping we went completely down," said the governor to try to ensure that Reyes' coup does not cloud his supposed successes.

Walking towards a meeting with all the State security commands, Monreal has asked citizens and God to "continue fighting" against crimes: "We do not have to give up, we must ask our people to be attentive, to take care of ourselves" .

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