Violence in southern Mexico has paralyzed Holy Week in Chiapas.
The entity, immersed in an insecurity crisis due to the dispute between organized crime groups, began the week with the murder of six people with bullets in the municipality of Pantelhó, in the Altos de Chiapas, and with an armed confrontation in the middle highway around the capital.
The road between Tuxtla Gutiérrez and Ocozocoautla dawned under fire on Monday.
A clash between criminals that lasted about three hours left at least two dead.
The images that circulated showed a dozen cars on fire or completely burned out, as well as vehicles carrying passengers affected by the shooting.
The neighbors chose to stay locked in their homes and the Catholic Church announced that the parishes in the area were suspending planned activities or would hold masses by teleconference to avoid putting parishioners at risk.
Chiapas is currently going through a complex situation due to the presence of groups such as the Sinaloa Cartel or Jalisco Nueva Generación, as well as sympathetic factions and other local groups that are vying for the plaza.
This intersection has fueled violence in several municipalities in the State.
This Monday it touched the outskirts of the capital of the entity, about 33 kilometers.
"After hearing the criminal news, elements of the inter-institutional and interdisciplinary group arrived at the Tuxtla Gutiérrez - Ocozocoautla highway section, at the intersection called 'death', where several damaged vehicles, two dead people and one injured were found. “She was transferred to a hospital to receive medical attention,” the State Prosecutor's Office said in a statement.
Neighbors in the area reported what happened from four in the morning until after seven o'clock.
Some took shelter in their homes, others who were traveling on the road recorded the shocking images that later circulated on social networks.
A cemetery of cars and a trail of bullets could be identified in the videos, and even in some photographs you can see the lifeless bodies thrown on the road.
A few kilometers from the site where the shooting was reported, this Tuesday the authorities found a completely burned vehicle with the body of a lifeless person inside, although at the moment they have not linked it to Monday's episode.
In Pantelhó, a group of members of the water board and the rural agency of the Los Naranjos neighborhood, who went on Monday to check a spring from which it was supplied, were attacked with bullets, allegedly by hitmen from a local group.
Local media reported that three other people were injured in the confrontation.
In that same region, residents of 86 communities announced last Saturday that the elections scheduled for June 2 would not be held there due to the lack of security to carry them out and, instead, they agreed to form a municipal council to govern the next three years.
In the midst of the wave of violence, and in a key week for the Catholic Church, the Archdiocese of Tuxtla issued a statement to announce that the San Juan Bautista Parish - Ocozocoautla was canceling its activities this Monday.
They also broadcast the Eucharist mass on social networks, so that followers did not leave their homes.
“We ask all the people of Ocozocoautla to be in prayer so that peace reigns and not violence,” they stated.
It is not the first time that religious institutions close their doors in the face of violence.
In February, at least 10 municipalities in that State suffered the reduction or suspension of activities due to the advance of organized crime.
A recent study published by several non-governmental organizations indicates that the poorest State in the entire country has been living in “unrecognized armed conflict” since 2021. According to the document, the violent situation was unleashed by a war between the Sinaloa Cartel, the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación and different armed groups, local and national, embedded in the dynamics of drug and human trafficking.
It is a “territorial dispute between organized crime structures for the control of goods, services, people, legal and illegal products, as well as the lives of the local population” that has displaced at least 10,000 people from their homes. from June 2021 to January 2024.
Some worrying factors that are intertwined with migration and the mafias that manage people trafficking in a State where thousands of people enter every month.
This Tuesday, 44 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Senegal, Congo and Mali "were located inside a passenger truck in order to be transported to another city, in exchange for a number of money”, according to the State Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection.
The panorama painted by the Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas details it forcefully.
The religious institution assured in a message sent last Sunday that they are seeing the communities bleeding "in the midst of the cruel war unleashed by the cartels disputing the territory, their confrontations, the settlement of accounts, the extortions, uprisings, the kidnapping of the communities.”
They call on the authorities to address the situation and guarantee the safety of the populations: “The threats are latent and impunity is rampant, in such circumstances, there are no conditions for elections.”
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