JUAREZ, Mexico (Border Report) – The border states of Chihuahua and Baja California are high up on the list of places in Mexico where the most “atrocities” are taking place.
The Mexico City nonprofit Causa en Comun (Common Cause) that puts out the list defines an atrocity as a torture-slaying, dismemberment, incineration, mass shootings or the use of extreme nonlethal violence against a woman, among others.
Chihuahua recorded 442 such crimes during the first nine months of 2023, followed by Guanajuato with 434 and Baja with 413. Guanajuato, where the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the local Santa Rosa de Lima gang are trying to exterminate each other, had more victims and almost twice as many mass shootings as either border state, though.
Some of the most gruesome acts of violence include the beheading of seven people in Guerrero in June and the kidnapping of five young men in Jalisco – one of them seen in a video made to kill one of his friends. In Chihuahua, a New Year’s Day prison escape left 10 guards and seven inmates dead.
“This report compiles stories that, taken as a whole, paint a picture of cruelty and pain behind crime statistics. It also shows that – far from the official myth about organized crime – a great portion of these atrocities are perpetrated by people who do not belong to criminal organizations,” Common Cause said in its report summary.
Mexican authorities at the highest levels blame their country’s violence on the drug gangs. “There is criminal violence, yes, but there is also gender-based violence, family violence and group violence,” the group said.
In Juarez’s working-class neighborhoods known as colonias, cartels and their gangs in the past few years have been aggressively pushing drugs on residents and killing each other off for this new market. A new round of body parts was found in trash bags, bodies wrapped in blankets were left on streets and a woman was incinerated in a clandestine landfill last week.
“Those of us who have been residents of Juarez all our lives are used to seeing homicides in public, the disappearance of young women – which in the past used to cause outrage and prompt people to pressure the authorities – we see it as normal now,” said Oscar Maynez, a former Chihuahua state criminologist.
He said this “numbing” effect allows criminals to go about their business with impunity and gives authorities leeway to ignore public safety issues in certain neighborhoods.
Maria Pilar Deziga, an investigator with Common Cause, said public opinion surveys show three out of five Mexicans never report crimes. She said that’s because they fear retribution from criminals and a “hostile” treatment from police when they try to file a complaint.
She said it is to most politicians’ advantage that not all crimes are reported, so they can say “things are not so bad.”