On June 30, Chiapas ranked number one on the list of intentional homicides committed in Mexico. Of the 96 murders recorded that day, the state governed by Rutilio Escandón was credited with 22 according to official data.
Just two weeks earlier — June 14 — the state had ranked first with a total of 13 homicides, on a day in which the number of deaths in the country closed at 86.
The same thing happened on May 18: of the 79 homicide victims reported nationwide, 11 lost their lives in Chiapas. Once again, that day the state ranked first among the most violent in Mexico.
Over the weekend, a video taken by a member of the Sinaloa Cartel circulated, showing a cluster of bodies abandoned in the back of a dump truck in Jaltenango, in the municipality of Albino Corzo. The corpses, with tactical vests and high-powered weapons, lay scattered in the unit. “Look at the mess, they were left there,” “The whole bottom of the gondola was full of filth, look,” “Look at thirty bastards here,” said the author of the video, who ordered his men: “Take out all the magazines and all the horns… whatever is not stained with blood… It stinks a lot here.”
Although the man who speaks in the video assured that there were at least 30 men killed, military personnel, from the investigative police and from the state police who appeared at the scene hours after residents had reported to 911, informed their superiors: “It is already positive, 14 bodies in plain sight and pending (that) forensic experts move them, because they are piled up.”
State authorities reported that “15 men were found murdered by firearm in the back of the dump truck, two more in the cabin, two on the side and one more approximately 100 meters from the vehicle, which had large-caliber bullet wounds.”
The video that went viral over the weekend mentions that the victims were reinforcements sent to support a certain “Ataulfo,” whom intelligence sources identify as Ataulfo López Flores, a well-known local chieftain.
On May 16, Lucero López Maza, daughter of this character and candidate for the municipal presidency of La Concordia for the Popular Party of Chiapas, was murdered outside a gas station, when she was campaigning. Five people also died in the attack, one of whom was the candidate’s younger sister.
Ataulfo López Flores has been identified as a character linked to cells of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, which, after a long period of extreme violence against communities, have decided to present themselves, “to save face,” under a new name: the Chiapas and Guatemala Cartel.
Two weeks before the murder of his daughter, López Flores’ ranch, located in La Concordia, was burned by armed men: 10 people died in the attack; cars and property were burned.
The outbreak of violence occurs in a context of extortion, kidnappings and forced disappearances that are devastating communities in La Concordia, Independencia and Jaltenango.
The Jalisco Cartel accuses the military of having allowed the Sinaloa Cartel to enter the municipalities in dispute. Death, back and forth, has been unleashed in the region: a day after a body with a message from the Jalisco Cartel appeared hanging on a bridge on the Tuxtla-Ocozocoautla highway, the remains of four alleged members of the Sinaloa Cartel were sent inside a cooler and abandoned at a gas station.
The decomposition of vast regions, the struggle between criminal groups and unresolved social conflicts are the balances left in the entity by the first Morena government. During the first three months of 2024, homicides skyrocketed in Chiapas by more than 50%. In the first 10 days of April alone, 35 homicides were committed, half of those reported throughout the entire month of March.
In the final days of his government, López Obrador has claimed that Chiapas is one of the least violent states and with the greatest benefits from his administration.
In the final days of his government, reality, once again, seems to have other data.
Source: eluniversal
