The residents of indigenous communities in Guerrero expelled federal security agents they’d called for help on Wednesday after the latter assaulted and disarmed a regional community police force.  

Residents from communities near Chilapa, about 65 kilometers east of Chilpancingo, had met with state and federal authorities three days earlier to discuss the December 19 murders of two men and two women, who were all indigenous.

One of the demands at the meeting was for security forces to disarm a criminal gang called Los Ardillos, who are accused of at least eight killings in indigenous towns since 2018.

People from the communities called for assistance on Monday from the army, the National Guard and the state Attorney General’s Office after gang members entered the towns.

However, when the agents arrived at the village of Xolotepec, instead of looking for members of Los Ardillos, they disarmed and attacked community police officers from the regional CRAC-PF force who were stationed at a highway checkpoint which was installed weeks earlier to defend the communities.

Angered by the actions of the security forces, the locals expelled soldiers, National Guardsmen and ministerial police officers.

The CRAC-PF’s political arm, the Emiliano Zapata Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero, said security forces would be detained if they tried to disarm community police again.”Faced with these arbitrary actions, the inhabitants of these three communities … expelled the federal and state forces from the area with the warning that if they come to carry out actions like these against the community police, they will be held by the population,” it said in a statement.

With reports from Reforma and El Sol de Acapulco