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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/land-of-no-return-the-mexican-city-torn-apart-by-cartel-kidnappings/ar-AA1b8new

Land of no return: the Mexican city torn apart by cartel kidnappings
Story by Oscar Lopez in Mexico City

María Zapata Escamilla woke to the sound of shattering glass. Armed men
in military fatigues had burst into her home: they dragged her disabled
husband outside, along with her 14-year-old son, still in his pyjamas.
Then they drove away into the night.

Two weeks later, her husband’s brutalized body turned up, along with
nine others. But after more than a year, her son remains missing.

Related: As Mexico’s epidemic of violence rages on, authorities seem powerless to stop it

“I was left navigating alone,” she said through tears. “If they told me, ‘Give up your life in exchange for your son,’ I would give it.”

Zapata’s ordeal has become terrifyingly common in Fresnillo, a city in
the central Mexican state of Zacatecas that is currently being torn
apart by a battle between the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels. More than 70
people went missing in the mining city between January and March –
nearly one person a day, and a fivefold increase compared with the same
period in 2020.

Over four days in February, 10 men vanished without a trace.

“Every day there are kidnappings, every day there are shootouts, every
day there are deaths,” said Zapata. “It’s terror.”

Families of the Fresnillo victims say they have not received ransom
demands – or if they have, they have turned out to be scams.

The epidemic in Fresnillo mirrors a nationwide trend: after dipping in
2022, disappearances across Mexico surged by almost 30% in the first
three months of this year, compared with the same period last year,
government data shows.

The trend is yet another testament to the failure of President Andrés
Manuel López Obrador’s security strategy: while murders have decreased marginally since he took office, the surge in disappearances makes clear
that violence persists.

Zacatecas offers a devastating case study. Once relatively calm, the
strategic state, which borders eight others, has become fiercely
contested by criminal groups. Murders have rocketed; bodies turn up
regularly; cartels block roads and set trucks on fire.

The state carries significant political weight for López Obrador,
popularly known as Amlo. Zacatecas is governed by the Monreal family, a powerful dynasty at the heart of the president’s Morena party. Ricardo Monreal, a federal senator, is a presidential hopeful. His brother David
is state governor, while his other brother Saúl is mayor of Fresnillo.

The violence has made Zacatecas a key focus for the federal government.
In 2021, the defence ministry announced that more than 400 national
guard and troops would be sent to the state. This February, 600 more
soldiers were deployed.

But the state remains a hellscape.

“Zacatecas is overwhelmed,” said Leticia Castañeda Cruz, whose nephew
was snatched from his car in broad daylight, leaving behind his infant daughters. “We know them, Senator Ricardo Monreal, and David and Saúl,
and that whole family that has always governed us. But they’ve shown us
that they’ve failed.”

Spokesmen for the Zacatecas governor, David Monreal, and Fresnillo
mayor, Saúl Monreal, did not respond to repeated interview requests.


--
You voted for student loan forgiveness. You got demographic replacement
and World War 3.

"Title 8, U.S.C. § 1324(a) defines several distinct offenses related to aliens. Subsection 1324(a)(1)(i)-(v) prohibits alien smuggling, domestic transportation of unauthorized aliens, concealing or harboring
unauthorized aliens, encouraging or inducing unauthorized aliens to
enter the United States, and engaging in a conspiracy or aiding and
abetting any of the preceding acts. Subsection 1324(a)(2) prohibits
bringing or attempting to bring unauthorized aliens to the United States
in any manner whatsoever, even at a designated port of entry. Subsection 1324(a)(3)."

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient
heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of the night.”

― Allen Ginsberg, Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems

https://www.globalgulag.us

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