Abandoned by the Police, Mexicans Fight to Take Back Their Towns Jeremy Kryt - The Daily Beast
go to original February 13, 2016

As drug-funded warlords battle for control of towns and territory, a controversial re-ordering of the nation’s police has left many communities without protection.

Tlapehuala sits deep within the long, chaparral-covered valley called Tierra Caliente (Hot Land), in Mexico’s southwest Guerrero state - which is, pound-for-pound, the nation’s deadliest region. It’s also the heroin production capital of the hemisphere, which is the grain of truth behind some of Donald Trump’s latest xenophobic bombast.

Tierra Caliente, then, is epicenter of the epicenter in the Mexican drug war. And the valley itself more than looks the part: like the blighted backdrop from some old spaghetti western. The region is home to at least a dozen small but brutal cartels, each with its own jealously guarded fiefs, or plazas.

Conflict over these fiefdoms has been particularly bloody of late in Tierra Caliente, leading to ghoulish murders and torture practices that rival those of ISIS kill zones. Individual gangs out to terrorize their rivals, and the communities that support them, increasingly attack civilians to get their message across.

A pair of mass kidnappings in Familia Michoacana territory saw 22 people abducted last month alone. At least one of the victims, a high school principal, was killed while being held prisoner - apparently to send a message to La Familia that its regional supremacy was being challenged. In another incident in January, nine people - including a nurse on her honeymoon - were massacred when unidentified gunmen opened fire at birthday party.

From the gangs’ point of view, these turf squabbles make total sense.

Read the whole story at The Daily Beast

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