Two criminal organizations are waging a war in the south of the country for control of the trafficking of drugs and migrants on Highway 190 in Chiapas, security sources said.
The struggle between the Sinaloa Cartel (CDS) and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) for this route escalated to armed confrontations, murders, and even the disappearance of a family.
According to military and ministerial sources, the dispute includes the installation of illegal checkpoints to “detect” migrants “authorized” by the rival group, as well as drugs, mainly cocaine packages.
At the checkpoints, armed men take down the occupants, demand they show credentials, and in the case of migrants, they are separated from the rest.
The points of the highway in dispute pass through municipalities such as Ciudad Cuauhtémoc, San Cristóbal, Tuxtla, Ocozocoautla, and Arriaga.
“The phenomenon began on the road from Frontera Comalapa to Motozintla and then to Huixtla, where the problems with these groups were concentrated (…) the problem has already extended to Tuxtla because of the same situation (the control of the highway),” said a consulted source.
Last Tuesday and early Wednesday, a series of shootings were reported in the localities of Suchiapa, Berriozábal, Villaflores, and Ocozocoautla, as well as areas adjacent to Tuzantán and Motozintla, municipalities near the southern border of Mexico.
Since last Monday, after the skirmish reported on the Tuxtla-Ocozocoautla Highway, a family traveling to Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, was reported missing.
On various social media communications, there was an urgent call to locate María Cristina Jiménez Solano, José Manuel Ríos Rosales, Carlos Jiménez Solano, and José Iván Molina, who were traveling in a red Ford Lobo truck.
Authorities did not officially comment on this event, the outcome of the shootings in that area between Tuxtla and Ocozocoautla, or the missing family.
However, in the region, there was a paralysis of cargo and local passenger transport, causing distress among residents who had to hitchhike to get to their jobs in Tuxtla, state sources reported.
The federal daily Security Report stated that last Tuesday, five people were killed in Chiapas, two of them in the Villaflores area, apparently dedicated to public transport, who did not “warn” about the presence of opposing groups.
In that municipality, 90 kilometers south of Tuxtla, the presence of armed individuals on Highway 230 was also reported.
In Villaflores, the priest went out to the street from his church and prayed for peace and tranquility to return to that municipality of about 110,000 inhabitants.
And it is that last Monday, an unprecedented confrontation was recorded in Chiapas between criminal gangs on the Ocozocoautla-Berriozábal Highway, 40 minutes from the state capital.
The acts of violence are reported in the middle of the holiday season.
Source: Al Dia Dallas
