International
Displaced by the crime in southern Mexico threaten to boycott the elections
Inhabitants displaced by organized crime in the Sierra de Guerrero, a southern state of Mexico that faces a wave of violence, protested this Thursday to demand security and warned of a boycott in Sunday’s elections.
The group of people from the municipality of Leonardo Bravo was placed with banners at the entrance to the municipal capital, Chichihualco, where they will block the interstate road, if they do not have a solution before the elections.
“We want a solution now, before Sunday, because, if not, there are no votes on Sunday,” said one of the protesters with a half-covered face.
The protesters belong to about 20 communities in the mountains, with between four and six years of having left their villages due to the threats of criminal groups.
In addition, they denounced that the criminal group of Los Tlacos looted or burned their homes, appropriated their land and stole their animals.
The demonstrators asked for help from the federal government and the state of Guerrero to recover his life, so they requested the permanent installation of two Army operations bases in El Carrizal and Filo de Caballos, for which they demanded the intervention of the governor, Evelyn Salgado.
They also demanded a hearing with the municipal president, Saúl Villa Adame, whom they have not seen in the area for a year. They accused him of not attending to them.
Chichihualco is a constant scene of armed clashes for the control of that corridor in Mexico, where at the beginning of the month a group of self-defense from the municipality of Heliodoro Castillo arrived, linked to Los Tlacos, although after protests they left the place.
The protest reflects the exacerbation of violence in the midst of the elections in Guerrero, where this Wednesday Alfredo Cabrera, opposition candidate for the mayor of Coyuca de Benítez, was murdered in the last hours of the campaign, which aroused a condemnation of the Electoral Mission of the Organization of American States (OAS).
The standard-bearer of the National Action Party (PAN), the Institutional Revolutionary (PRI) and the Democratic Revolution (PRD) alliance was shot twice in the head as he came down from the temple where he had offered his closing speech.
In addition, the demonstration takes place in the midst of a national upturn in homicides, which rose by 7.37% in April to 2,622, the deadliest month of the year, in the midst of political violence that has left dozens of political murders.
More than 98 million voters are called to renew more than 20,000 positions, including the presidency, the 128 senators and the 500 deputies.
Eight state governments and the Head of Government of Mexico City and its 16 mayor’s offices will also be renewed.
Likewise, 1,098 local councils, 1,802 municipal presidencies, 1,975 syndicates, 204 councils, 14,560 councils, 22 municipal board presidencies, 88 municipal board councils, 22 municipal board unions and 299 community presidencies.
International
Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car
A 65-year-old Austrian citizen was arrested at a border checkpoint in Croatia after attempting to enter the country in his car with a deceased woman sitting as a passenger, police announced on Tuesday.
The man was detained in a routine check in late November in Gunja, a border area separating Bosnia from Croatia, the police told AFP. Suspicious because they saw “no consciousness or movement” from the passenger, Croatian officers called a doctor, who confirmed the death of the 83-year-old woman, also Austrian, according to her identification.
The woman’s relationship to the suspect is unknown. She had died in Bosnia, and the man intended to repatriate her body to Austria to “avoid the formalities related to transporting a corpse,” according to the police. Croatian media reported that the man was her legal guardian.
Once her death was confirmed, a funeral service took charge of the body.
International
Colombian nationals arrested for human trafficking and disappearance of migrant boat
Colombian authorities arrested two nationals accused of the illegal trafficking of migrants to the United States and of endangering lives due to the disappearance of a boat with 40 people aboard, U.S. Department of Justice officials reported on Tuesday.
Hernando Manuel de la Cruz Rivera Orjuela, 52, and Luis Enrique Linero Pinto, 40, both Colombian citizens, were arrested on December 13 in Colombia at the request of the United States for their alleged involvement in a “transnational human trafficking operation,” the department said in a statement.
According to the charges, the detainees were transporting migrants to San Andrés Island in the Caribbean, where they would then be taken by boat to Nicaragua. The goal was to reach the United States through Central America and Mexico.
The accused are said to have advised the migrants on how to reach San Andrés Island, where they personally received them, arranged accommodations, and “took them to the boats that transported them to Nicaragua so they could enter the United States illegally,” the statement reads.
“These defendants put several migrants on the boat that disappeared off the coast of Nicaragua in 2023,” said Deputy Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, as cited in the statement.
Both men are “directly and personally responsible for the illicit trafficking of migrants on that vessel,” according to the indictment dated October 23.
International
Homemade landmine explosion in Michoacán kills two soldiers, injures five
Two soldiers were killed and five others were injured by the explosion of homemade landmines planted by a criminal group in a mountainous area of the Mexican state of Michoacán (west), the Secretary of Defense reported on Tuesday.
The attack occurred on Monday morning in the municipality of Cotija, a border area between Michoacán and the state of Jalisco, when the military was conducting a reconnaissance mission after receiving information about an armed camp in the area, explained Secretary General Ricardo Trevilla.
“At that moment, an improvised explosive device detonated. Unfortunately, two soldiers lost their lives, and five others were injured,” the military leader detailed. The affected soldiers were airlifted to hospitals in the region by a military helicopter, while the rest of the team continued with the reconnaissance of the area.
Trevilla stated that before the explosion, the military unit had located the dismembered bodies of three people, and upon continuing the mission, they confirmed the camp was abandoned.
Asked about the individuals responsible for placing the explosives, the general suggested they could be criminals linked to the local group Cárteles Unidos, which operates in Michoacán and uses these tactics in their territorial dispute with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the country.
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