AP.— Cell phone conversations have become death sentences in the continuous and bloody war between factions within the Sinaloa Cartel.
Cartel gunmen They stop young people on the street or in their cars and demand their phones. If they find a contact from a member of a rival faction, a chat with the wrong word, or a photo with the wrong person, the owner dies.
They then go after everyone in that person’s contact list, forming a potential chain of kidnappingtorture and death. This has caused the residents of Culiacanthe capital of Sinaloa, are afraid to even leave home at night, much less visit places a few kilometers away, where a good number of them go away for the weekend.
“You can’t go out… five minutes from the city. “You can’t go even during the day,” he said. Ismael Bojorqueza veteran journalist in Culiacan. “Because? Because there is retainers of the drug traffickers who stop you and check your cell phone.”
And it’s not just about your own chats: if a person is traveling in a car with others, a bad contact or someone’s chat the more you can do kidnap to the entire group.
That happened to the son of a local news photographer. The 20-year-old was arrested along with two other young people and they found something on one of the phones; the three they disappeared. Calls were made and the man was finally released. photographer’s sonbut the other two were never seen again.
The residents of Culiacan They had long been accustomed to a day or two of violence from time to time. There, the presence of Sinaloa Cartel It is woven into everyday life and people knew to stay home if they saw convoys of speeding double-cab pickup trucks on the streets.
But they had never seen the full month of fighting that broke out on September 9 between factions of the Sinaloa cartel, after the drug lords Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López were detained in the United States after flying there in a small plane on July 25.
Zambada he later stated that Guzman Lopez kidnapped him and forced him onto the aircraft, which caused a violent battle between Zambada’s faction and the group of Los Chapitosled by the children of drug trafficking leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who is imprisoned in the United States.
The residents of Culiacán They mourn their previous life, when the wheels of the local economy were greased by cartel wealth, but civilians rarely suffered unless they cut off the wrong van in traffic.
But cartel factions have resorted to new tactics, including a huge wave of armed vehicle robberies in Culiacan and its surroundings. The cartel gunmen used to steal the SUVs and pickup trucks they prefer to use in cartel convoys; but now they are focusing on stealing smaller sedans.
They use them to go unnoticed in their silent kidnappings and deadly.
The State Public Security Council, a citizen body, estimates that in the last month there has been an average of six murders and seven disappearances or kidnappings in the city and its surroundings per day. The group said about 200 families have fled their homes in outlying communities due to the brutality.
Violence overflowing in Culiacán
Culiacan is no stranger to violence. A gunfight broke out across the city in October 2019, when soldiers mounted a failed attempt to arrest Ovidanother of the sons of “El Chapo” Guzmán. Fourteen people died that day.
A few days later, civic activist Estefanía López organized a peace march and 4,000 residents came to participate. When the activist tried to do something similar this year, she only managed to get a few 1,500 people attended a demonstration similar.
“We received many messages in advance from many people who told us that they had the intention of going to march and join the initiative, but that they were afraid to go”Lopez said.
There is reason to be afraid: last week, armed men broke into a Culiacán hospital to kill a patient who had previously been injured by gunshots. In a city north of Culiacán, drivers were stunned to see a military helicopter that he was trying to corner four armed men wearing helmets and tactical vests a few meters from a highway; The men were also shooting at the helicopter.
The president’s response Claudia Sheinbaum All of this has been to blame the United States for creating problems by allowing drug lords to surrender.
“Sinaloa had virtually no homicides” before the capture of the two drug lords on July 25, Sheinbaum said. “From there a wave of violence is unleashed in Sinaloa,” he said.
His claim is easily refuted: cartel factions were killing each other for years, albeit at lower levels. But this illustrates the government’s head-in-the-sand approach: Sheinbaum and his predecessor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, had few problems with the existence and local dominance of drug trafficking groups as long as they did not make headlines.
Now that the violence has overflowedthe government has sent hundreds of soldiers.
But irregular urban fighting in the heart of a city of 1 million people—against a sign which has many .50 caliber sniper rifles and machine guns—are not the specialty of the Army.
Squads of soldiers entered a luxury apartment complex in the city center to arrest a suspect and shot dead a young lawyer who was a mere bystander.
Lopez, the peace activist, has called for soldiers and police to be posted outside schools so children can return to class, most of whom currently take their lessons online because their parents judge it to be too much. dangerous take them to school.
But the police cannot solve the problem: the entire municipal force of Culiacán has been temporarily disarmed by soldiers to check their weapons, something that has been done in the past when the Army suspects that police officers work for the drug cartels.
The local Army commander recently recognized that the end of violence depends on the cartel factionsnot from the authorities.
“Since not even in Culiacan There is no confidence in either the police or the military to say that we are safe,” said López, who pointed out that this has had a clear effect on daily life and the economy. “Many businesses, restaurants and nightclubs have been closed for the last month.”
Laura Guzmán, leader of the local restaurant chamber, said that around 180 businesses in Culiacán have closed permanently or temporarily since September 9 and that almost 2,000 jobs have been lost.
Local businesses tried to organize “late”—events throughout the afternoon—for residents afraid to go out after dark, but failed to attract enough customers.
For those looking to get away from the violence temporarily, the coastal city of Mazatlan It is only a two and a half hour drive away. But that is no longer an option since last month, when cartel gunmen kidnapped passenger buses, forced tourists to get off and burned the vehicles to block the road to Mazatlan.
That leaves only one option, and one only available to some. “Those who have economic opportunity leave the city by air to take up space,” said Guzmán.