Municipal water has been cut off to thousands of residents of Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, as part of a protest that blocked Highway 200 on Friday, local media reported on Sunday.

Highway blockades continued Monday, effectively cutting off communication between the city of Puerto Escondido and points east. 

Neither state nor federal government officials have issued an official response to the protest, initiated by the mayor of Santa María Colotepec to support the municipality’s demands regarding some 1,300 hectares of land expropriated in 1970.

Mayor Carmelo Cruz Mendoza warned that his municipality would not give up any land to San Pedro Mixtepec, the other municipality in which Puerto Escondido is located.

On Sunday, Cruz and his followers turned off the city’s water, which comes from Colotepec, the newspaper El Imparcial reported.

It also reported that residents of several colonias in Colotepec have rejected the mayor’s actions and threatened to burn the vehicles being used to block the highway at several locations.

Source: El Imparcial (sp)