Santa María del Oro.— Some 180 families from the Zipoco estate and other rancherías in the municipality of Santa María del Oro, Jalisco, were forced to abandon their homes due to the advance of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) in this area bordering Michoacán. .
Last October, this criminal organization began attacks against populations that, they claim, sent calls for help to the authorities, but they were ignored.
“I loved these lands, I love them. Unfortunately and shamefully, I am not one to carry this [un rifle] when we have a government equipped and endowed with everything, which has to be there to repel everything that threatens the people of the countryside,” says Santos, a displaced inhabitant.
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Source: self made
“We were there, taking out our cows, and the criminals arrived, a monstrosity, and they chased us away,” he denounces, while pointing into the distance to show what his property was. The rancher also says that he had to waste the few cattle that he managed to get to pay for some weapons that were sold to him.
With his rifle on his shoulder, Santos says that he saw, from the top of a hill, how criminals looted his property and took the livestock from his ranch.
“There is nothing now. This is dead here and the cows that were left there are being taken away by them. [los delincuentes]. “We don’t have a single chicken on the ranches.”
Along with Santos there are older adults, young people and women who were victims of forced displacement and who lost everything.
Some inhabitants are armed with hunting rifles; Others also obtained automatic weapons, in order, they say, to stop the advance of the criminal group. There are already close to 200 families that had to flee that region of Jalisco to save their lives. Without clothes or jobs, and in many cases without money, they sought help.
Most of the displaced families gather in Petacala. They ask for help and denounce that the authorities at the three levels of government have abandoned them.
They point out that a day before an Army group arrived in Zipoco with whom they sought a rapprochement to request security, but the response was adverse.
They report that while they were talking with the military personnel, people from the CJNG carried out a new attack, due to the inaction of the authorities.
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“Of terror, because that day we went to ask the government for help we all threw ourselves on the ground there, because the bullets were passing over us, and the Army was there…
“Us [estábamos] telling the military to turn around so they could go and support them and no, they didn’t want to and they didn’t want to. They said they couldn’t,” says Sarahí Barajas, one of the displaced.
He describes what day-to-day life is like in Zipoco and its surroundings since the CJNG revived its attacks: “The Jalisco Cartel had been advancing and launching drones with explosives and everything. There are many bullets, some hit houses, animals and everywhere.
“People [estaba] Terrified because there is no help from anything, not even from the government, and that is what we want to ask the Army, if they do us a favor to help us get those people out of there,” Sarahí cries.
Locals say that the cartel’s mobilization and attacks with armored trucks, some of them equipped with Minigun machine guns, which are weapons of war, are increasingly more visible.
EL UNIVERSAL toured the area and confirmed that there is no presence of any authority to confront the criminal group to prevent its advance to other municipalities, and to take care of the population.
That is why some residents decided to arm themselves with the support of community guards.
“You have to run away, what else. Los Jaliscos don’t leave us any other way [CJNG] and there is no government that supports us for that. I have some cattle there, which is what hurts me to leave, and there is no other way than to leave them abandoned. We are already angry about this harsh crime,” laments Jesús Ramírez, who was also displaced.
María Yolanda says that she had to flee with her children, two of them carried in her arms, to save her life “from this nightmare.”
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“All day we are scared, watching the sky to see if a drone or something doesn’t fall, because that is what is happening, the bullets reach the ranch,” he says.
“Help us! Support us, damn it! You are very happy where you live and we are completely devastated here, people no longer sleep because of fear,” emphasizes Salvador Escalera, father of the family.
“We just hear the thunder of the machine guns and we say that they are coming, and that they are coming, and that they are reaching us… and that they are killing us, and there is no one to say anything,” he concludes.
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2024-01-19 20:02:35
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