ACI Prensa Staff, Sep 26, 2023 / 18:00 pm
Rodrigo Aguilar Martínez, the bishop of San Cristóbal de las Casas in the Mexican state of Chiapas, warned in a Sept. 23 letter posted on Facebook that the country’s south is “torn by violence” due to the confrontations between criminal gangs.
Sept. 23 videos that went viral on social media show a convoy of pickup trucks — presumably from the criminal organization known as the Sinaloa Cartel — driving through the streets of towns in Chiapas as hundreds of residents stood lining the street.
According to the local press, residents of the southern region of Mexico are forced to support or even join the ranks of organized crime, while clashes between drug trafficking cartels are affecting more than 200,000 inhabitants in the region.
As a result, Aguilar stated that “criminal gangs have taken over our territory and we find ourselves in a state of siege, under social psychosis with road blockades set up by drug gangs, which use civil society as a human barrier” putting the lives of citizens and their families at risk.