SEATTLE - Just five minutes away from the border with Guatemala, hundreds of Mexicans are fleeing the town of Amatenango la Frontera, in Chiapas, seeking refuge from drug cartel violence. One local farmer said that even the innocent are in great danger around the rural borderlands of southern Mexico.
"I left my home because of the shooting, and out of fear," said the farmer, who requested anonymity for his family's safety. "The cartels kill even the innocent." Just like the farmer, hundreds of people have also fled in search for a more peaceful life and have started to look for refuge in nearby Guatemalan towns.
Guatemala President Bernardo Arévalo said that his administration was coordinating with the local governments in Huehuetenango and the municipality of Cuilco to attend to the Mexicans "who are escaping conflict between groups that is taking place on the Mexican side." But despite hundreds of people being displaced, Chiapas' state security agency said it had received no reports from the area.
The Mexican families began arriving to various locations in Cuilco on July 23, according to Guatemala's National Disaster Reduction Coordinator, one of the agencies attending to the refugees. Among them was a 91-year-old woman suffering from diabetes, who was not able to take her medicine with her and died during the journey, the Guatemalan government report said.
"Thank God they gave us a hand, gave us a tea to calm our fear," a 72-year-old farmer that recently fled his hometown said. "We're afraid to return. There's no authority to fight them. What we ask of the government is to intervene and help us out and send the Mexican army."
Fights between cartels from northern Mexico have been brought down to Chiapas along the Guatemala border for more than a year already, as the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels fight for control over smuggling routes.
Last month, about 5,000 people were displaced by violence in another town of Chiapas after armed violent groups set houses on fire in the rural town of Tila.
In September of last year, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador admitted that cartels had cut off electrical power in some Chiapas towns near the Guatemala border, and forbidden government workers from coming in to the largely rural area to fix power lines.
Amid the violence that is flooding the area, Catholic Church leaders in southern Mexico have made their own plea for the Mexican government to protect the communities from the cartels.
A letter signed by Bishop Emeritus Jaime Calderón of the Tapacbula Diocese and 15 other priests begged for government help arguing that they are being "hostages in their communities, paying extortion to the corresponding cartel based on where they live."
"What do we have to do or say so that the government carries out its duty, at least, to protect and watch out for the security of the communities?" the letter asks.
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