from Stamau123@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 16 Feb 19:47
https://lemmy.world/post/43218341
CONCORDIA, Mexico (AP) — Deep in the coastal mountains above the sparkling Pacific resort of Mazatlan, towns spaced along a twisting road appear nearly deserted, the quiet broken only by the occasional passing truck.
It was near one of these towns, Panuco, that 10 employees of a Canadian-owned silver and gold mine were abducted in late January. The bodies of five were located nearby and five more await identification.
Most residents of these towns have fled out of fear as two factions of the Sinaloa Cartel have been locked in battle since September 2024, said Fermín Labrador, a 68-year-old from the nearby village of Chirimoyos. Others, he said, were “invited” to leave.
The abduction of the mine workers under still unclear circumstances has raised fears locally and more widely generated questions about the security improvements touted by President Claudia Sheinbaum. She signaled her more aggressive stance toward drug cartels in Sinaloa with captures and drug seizures after she took office in late 2024. It has been one year since she sent 10,000 National Guard troops to the northern border to try to head off U.S. tariffs over the cartels’ fentanyl trafficking, much of which comes from Sinaloa.
In January, Sheinbaum held up a sharp decline in homicide rates last year as evidence that her security strategy was working.
“What these kinds of episodes do is demolish the federal government’s narrative that insists that little by little they are getting control of the situation,” said security analyst David Saucedo. He said Sheinbaum had tried to “manage the conflict” while the Sinaloa Cartel’s internal war spread and split the state by obliging people “to take a side with one of the two groups.”
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