Acapulco, Devoted to Fun and Pursued by Horror Hans-Maximo Musielik - VICE News
go to original October 19, 2015

Acapulco, a Paradise Littered With Violence (wochit News)

Acapulco's hotels, bars, and golden sand beaches stretch out along the entire length of the resort's spectacular crescent-shaped bay, but their promise of unbridled fun struggles to shake off the shadow of the cartel turf war violence that is never far away.

Miguel Alemán, the city's coastal road that connects the main tourist hotspots along the beach, seeks to separate the two worlds. The street is patrolled 24/7 by the army, navy, and police seeking to prevent the gruesome conflicts between drug gangs from reaching the tourist areas.  But Acapulco resists that invisible line.

...Acapulco is the third most violent city in the world, behind San Pedro Sula in Honduras and Caracas in Venezuela, according to the Mexico-based Citizens' Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice. Figures released by the security ministry in Guerrero state show there were 336 homicides in the resort in the first five months of this year, a 63 percent increase on the same period of 2014. A count of executions carried out by local newspaper El Sur puts the figure at 665 until the end of September.

And yet Acapulco continues to attract tourists. The glamorous days when Elizabeth Taylor roamed the bay are long over, but the resort still boasts luxurious gated communities filled with Mexico's elites. At high season, the population swells with busloads of working class vacationers from Mexico City.

Read the rest and see photos at VICE News

Related: Acapulco Goes from Vacation Paradise to Murder City (La Voz)

Photo: Hans-Maximo Musielik/VICE News

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