EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Mexican authorities on Thursday were converging on three towns in the state of Chihuahua where armed civilians allegedly displaced dozens of Indigenous adults and children.
State officials said they procured accommodations and translators for the 31 children and eight adults who sought refuge in the city of Guadalupe y Calvo. The members of the Tepehuan tribe told authorities the armed incursion took place last Sunday in the village of La Sierrita.
The state Attorney General’s Office said on Wednesday that police and the Mexican army advanced not only on La Sierrita but also on the villages of San Geronimo and Santa Rita.
State authorities did not specify who the armed civilians were or why they displaced the Indigenous families. But local news media reported that rival drug trafficking gangs involved in a shootout torched nine homes in La Sierrita. The news accounts say the gun battle spilled into San Geronimo, where a vehicle and two more homes were burned.
Guadalupe y Calvo is near the city of Guachochi, where earlier this month drug traffickers shot at a church and decapitated an alleged rival. The priest at Santa Anita church in Guachochi told reporters that the shootout had prompted many residents to abandon the town in fear.
In April, El Heraldo de Chihuahua reported that soldiers discovered a plantation in Guadalupe y Calvo, where 10,000 marijuana plants were being grown.
