Mexican vigilantes lead the fight against drug cartels

The Michoacan area in Mexico has become so lawless that a band of guards are taking responsibility for protecting their friends and family.

The state, which is the world’s largest supplier of avocados and limes, has recently been invaded by the violent drug cartel in Jalisco, from the neighboring state, which is why women are reacting, according to The Associated Press.

Women carry assault rifles and block roads, often pregnant or carrying small children, to combat rising levels of homicide, which have skyrocketed since 2013.

Most of the women lost relatives to the cartel, such as Blanco Nava, who told the AP that her son Freddy Barrios, a 29-year-old lime picker, was kidnapped by alleged gunmen from the Jalisco cartel in pickup trucks; she never heard from him again.

Another woman claimed that her 14-year-old daughter was kidnapped and has not been seen since, saying “We are going to defend alive those we have left, the children we have left. We women are tired of watching our children, our families disappear. They take our children, they take our daughters, our relatives, our husbands. “

It is up to women to fight, since most men are being transported to work for the cartels (willingly or not).

Armed women who answer by nicknames
Armed women who call themselves “La Chola”, on the left, and “La Guera”, who claim to be members of a self-defense group led by women fighting against drug gangs, seen driving with firearms on 14 January 2021.
Armando Solis / AP

“As soon as they see a man who can carry a gun, they take him away,” the woman told the AP. “They disappear. We don’t know if they have them (as recruits) or if they’ve already killed them.”

The vigilant women also made a homemade tank, “a heavy-duty truck with welded steel plate armor,” reports the AP, while women in other cities dug trenches on the roads leading to the neighboring state of Jalisco, to keep the attackers away.

Children play in sandbags at a checkpoint set up by their mothers, who are part of the women's-led advocacy group in Mexico on January 13, 2021.
Children play in sandbags at a checkpoint set up by their mothers, who are part of the women’s-led advocacy group in Mexico on January 13, 2021.
Armando Solis / AP

Alberto García, refused to enter the cartels and had to flee. His family members were not so lucky.

“They killed one of my brothers too,” said Garcia. “They cut him into pieces, and my sister-in-law, who was eight months pregnant.”

Vigilantes say they need to resort to these tactics, as the government and police do not.

A masked woman who said she was displaced from her community by criminal groups seen on January 13, 2021.
A masked woman who said she was displaced from her community by criminal groups seen on January 13, 2021.
Armando Solis / AP

Sergio Garcia, a member of the watchdog group El Terrero, says his 15-year-old brother was kidnapped and killed by Jalisco. Now, he wants justice that the police never gave him.

“We are here for a reason, to get justice for better or for worse, because if we don’t do it, no one else will,” said Garcia.

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