Mexico's cartel violence haunts civilians in the lead-up to June elections

Relatives and friends carry the coffin that contain the remains of man slain in a mass shooting, into a church for a funeral service in Huitzilac, Mexico, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. The shooting in the mountain township beset by crime just south of Mexico City resulted in several deaths, authorities said Sunday. – Tailed by trucks of heavily armed soldiers, four caskets floated on a sea of hundreds of mourners.

Despite disbanding a corrupt Federal Police and replacing it with a 130,000-strong National Guard, focusing on social ills driving cartel recruitment, and declining to pursue cartel leaders in many cases, killings in April reached nearly the same historic high as when López Obrador first took office in 2018.

Josué Meza Cuevas, Huitzilac’s municipal secretary general, said it was not clear what provoked the bloodshed, but many in the town attribute it to a turf war between the Familia Michoacana, La Unión de Morelos and other cartels, which has made the state of Morelos one of Mexico's most violent. Located little more than an hour from the hipster bars and backpacker hostels in Mexico City, Huitzilac made a name as a town just outside the law's reach.

On Monday night, Anahi heard gunshots echo from town and saw armed men moving outside her window. Days before that, her son’s friend who once played at their house, was shot dead. Before that, her daughter’s friend received death threats on her phone. In Huitzilac, armed National Guard soldiers shifted nervously on Tuesday as they guarded the side of the road. One soldier said their units have faced a number of attacks since the bloodshed that took place last weekend. An armored vehicle drove past the small neighborhood bar where the eight men were killed, the facade dented by bullets, with candles and flowers laying on the ground below.

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