Zirándaro Guerrero.- On November 18, news began to circulate about the difficult situation that some communities in Zirándaro are going on, Guerrero, informing both local, national, villagers and the municipal president of Zirandaro, that groups of criminals apparently members of the Jalisco Cartel or Michoacana Family have looted the homes of the inhabitants, leaving some without their homes and others charging them a fee to continue living, reporting other crimes and abuses causing some people had to leave their people fleeing terror and others to take up arms to defend what little they have.
It all began when the municipal president of Zirándaro, Gregorio Portillo Mendoza, publicly denounced that the vacuum of authority in that place of the Tierra Caliente region has provoked an atmosphere of “ungovernability” and “humanitarian crisis” in the face of the confrontation of armed groups.
Portillo Mendoza stated that in a week 120 families from twenty communities have been displaced, where crime disputes the square adjoining the state of Michoacán.
He said the public transport service has been suspended for a week on the Zirándaro-Ciudad Altamirano route and that more than 40 school campuses are closed in the face of escalating violence.
“We have a few days asking the State Coordination for peace building to install two security filters at two points in the municipality that allow roads to be reopened on closed roads, because tension continues over confrontation between crime groups and could not be reopened,” the mayor said
The news quickly began to viralize reaching national media, so journalists came to witness such events that the mayor denounced.
The mayor of Zirándaro, Guerrero, reports that for a little more than a week there have been clashes between criminal groups that keep the area on alert, #EnPunto with @DeniseMaerker pic.twitter.com/nLzhcOmaYB
— Televisa News (@NTelevisa_com) November 20, 2019
On the other hand, the president of the state of Guerrero flatly denies that such conflicts are happening in Zirandaro, stressing that there is no evidence that it is true, but however several media outlets are in the places of events showing how the villagers are armed to defend their villages.
Warrior: two versions of clashes in Zirándaro pic.twitter.com/oyUG56ALrz
— Denise Maerker (@DeniseMaerker) November 21, 2019
However, the villagers continue to ask for help as they confess that criminals have already murdered more than 14 people, including young people who refused to collaborate with them as they abduct them into unpaid gunmen.
There is evidence of these “retainers” that the villagers created and of lords declaring the number of people who have lost their lives following these acts of violence.
Governor Héctor Astudillo insists that the situation in zirandaro municipality, on hot land, is normal; the information gathered by different institutions indicated that everything was within normal #EnPunto with @DeniseMaerker https://t.co/n89gDlcZNl pic.twitter.com/szXGL0IA3d
— Televisa News (@NTelevisa_com) November 23, 2019
on 22 November afternoon, the National Guard and the State Police took place in the village of Guayameo, at an event attended by some 200 out of a thousand 400 displaced persons from some 20 communities who fled because of the terror and violence of crime groups operating in that area bordering the state of Michoacán.
At the event in Guayameo, the villagers of the community of Los Alacranes- located about 500 kilometers from Chilpancingo-, from which some 33 families fled, asked the National Guard and the State Police to accompany them to collect some of their belongings, so an operation was implemented.
When he arrived in the community one of the villagers warned of the presence of armed civilians in the surrounding hills, so the head of the National Guard asked the entourage, including reporters, to take appropriate action.
The armed civilians were caught, and they were on the verge of the confrontation, but they had to flee to the surrounding hills leaving the food and their belongings, even cartridges of various calibers that were seized, in this operation that lasted for almost an hour.
Before, in the town of San Rafael, the villagers, who have been armed for more than a week, showed up at an event of protest in the center of the community, and together with the inhabitants, and in the presence of the mayor of Morena in Zirándaro, Gregorio Portillo Mendoza, demanded why until now they were presented to the community, from where more than 500 of the thousand citizens who live there.
It should be emphasized that the affected communities do not have several services such as: Schools, Doctors, Transport, and everything had to stop their jobs as peasants in order to protect the entrances of the people.
