Cartel violence haunts civilians in lead-up to Mexico election

(17 May 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Huitzilac, Mexico - 14 May 2024
1. Various of funeral procession for shooting victims
2. Soldier standing guard as procession approaches
3. Close of football jersey on coffin
4. Woman watching procession
5. Mourners walking past military vehicles
6. Military personnel with machine gun
7. Shuttered shop where eight men were killed
8. Banner inviting people to mass for killed man
9. Candles and flowers laying at site of shooting
10. Bullet hole in shutter
11. Police patrolling town in vehicles
12. Huitzilac Town hall
13. Various of Huitzilac’s Secretary-General, Josué Meza Cuevas, in his office
14. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Josué Meza Cuevas, Huitzilac’s Secretary-General:
"Nothing like this has ever happened. We are all shocked by the situation."
15. Shuttered shops
16. Various of election campaign posters
17. Mid of digger seen window
18. Reverse of Anahí
19. Close of Anahí’s feet
20. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Anahí (No last name given), Huitzilac resident: ++IDNETITY WITHHELD FOR SECURITY REASONS++
"When my phone rings, I’m terrified that it’ll be the school saying something has happened to my kids. Whenever the phone rings, I'm always afraid it's bad news."
21. Various of Anahí
22. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Anahí (No last name given), Huitzilac resident: ++IDNETITY WITHHELD FOR SECURITY REASONS++
"I don't know why my government, my president, doesn't come down with a heavier hand against these people (cartels). I feel disappointed. I expected more."
23. Mid of street
24. Closed school
25. Close of padlock next to hand print painting at school entrance
STORYLINE:
Tailed by trucks of heavily armed soldiers, four caskets floated upon a sea of hundreds of mourners in Huitzilac.

Neighbours peered nervously from their homes as the crowd pushed past shuttered businesses, empty streets and political campaign posters plastering the small Mexican town.

Days earlier, armed men in two cars sprayed a nearby shop with bullets, claiming the lives of eight men who locals say were sipping beers after a soccer match.

Now, fear paints the day-to-day lives of residents who say the town is trapped unwillingly in the middle of a firefight between warring mafias.

"When my phone rings, I’m terrified that it’ll be the school saying something has happened to my kids," said 42-year-old mother Anahi, who withheld her full name out of fear for her safety on Tuesday.

Cartel violence is nothing new to Mexico, but bloodshed in the Latin American nation has spiked in the run-up to June 2 elections, with April marking the most lethal month this year, government data shows.

But candidates are not the only ones at risk. Even before the election it was clear that outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador had done little more than stabilize Mexico's high level of violence, despite pledges to ease cartel warfare.

Despite disbanding a corrupt Federal Police and replacing it with a 130,000-strong National Guard, focusing on social ills driving cartel recruitment, and declining to pursue cartel leaders in many cases, killings in April reached nearly the same historic high as when López Obrador first took office in 2018.

Cartels have expanded control in much of the country and raked in money — not just from drugs but from legal industries and migrant smuggling. They've also fought with more sophisticated tools like bomb-dropping drones and improvised explosive devices.

So far, those vying to be Mexico’s next president have only offered proposals that amount to more of the same.










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