The Sinaloa Cartel Was Applauded By Residents Of Southern Mexico: What Is Happening In Chiapas?

Residents of the Mexican state of Chiapas gathered on the sides of the Pan-American highway to applaud an armed group, identified as part of the Sinaloa cartel, which freed the communication routes during its passage from the town of La Trinitaria to the municipality of Frontera Comalapa, in the same southern entity.

This, after 13 days of blockades at different points of the Chiapas communication route, while videos circulating on social networks show that locals are making a fence in a line around federal highway 211 to thank them with applause and cheers to the armed group.

The group made its way among the people of the Mexican southeast aboard luxurious armored trucks, in which they carried long weapons and military-type clothing and even wore tactical bulletproof vests with the legend "MARINA", in reference to the Secretariat of the Navy (Semar), of the Mexican Armed Forces.

The liberated sections are located in the Chiapas towns of Frontera Comalapa and Trinitaria, near San Gregorio Chamic, and the accesses to Trinitaria and Comitán, where blockades have been maintained since last September 11, to demand justice for the kidnapping and the subsequent death of Berni Flor, a high school teacher murdered on September 12.

Read also: Imprisonment vs. Reduce Recruitment: How to Stop Cartel Violence in Mexico?

For these blockades, they occupied businessmen's trucks and public transportation, where they hung narcomantas, calling for security and the dismissal of a high-command general of the Mexican Army.

These blockades were installed by the Maíz foundation (acronym for left hand), allied with the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG), which carried out vehicle inspections at the entrances and exits of the municipal capital from Frontera Comalapa to Comitán and from Comalapa to Motozintla, in Chiapas.

In addition to the release of the blockades, residents reported a confrontation early this Saturday in the limits of the Motozintla-Mazapa de Madero municipality, which kept the municipality of Frontera Comalapa without electricity.

Likewise, public transportation services from Frontera Comalapa to Comitán and from Comalapa to Motozintla were suspended due to insecurity and the different road blockades that persist in the area.

Some checkpoints still remain, especially in Frontera Comalapa and Mazapa de Madero, while control is strict for those who do not belong to criminal alliances.

Chiapas: scene of cartel confrontations

For two years, the border region and Sierra Madre of Chiapas has been living under the tension, violence and terror generated by the dispute between the CJNG and Sinaloa cartels, leaving a wave of disappearances, kidnappings, dispossessions and murders, as well as displacement and forced recruitments.

The wave of violence and the shortage of products affects the population of the municipalities of Amatenango de la Frontera, Chicomuselo, Mazapa de Madero and Motozintla, while a recent report from Science magazine concludes that drug trafficking in Mexico is the fifth largest employer in the country.