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‘Shoot the narcos,’ declares mayor of Hermosillo, Sonora

By
Susy Buchanan
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Drug dealers are traitors, says Mayor López.
Drug dealers are traitors, says Mayor López.

Mayor Célida López of Hermosillo, Sonora, believes that drug traffickers should be shot.

López made the statement Wednesday during her second annual report on the state of the city, in which she offered that those who sell drugs to minors are traitors to their country.

“Drug trafficking should not be confronted with [a show of] weapons,” she said, “drug traffickers should be shot in this country, as happens in other countries of the world.” 

“We do not only need more elements of the National Guard, we need to remove from our city each and every man who rises up with a gun in hand and is capable of murdering a minor,” she added. Prison sentences or freezing financial assets of drug dealers is not punishment enough, she said. 

“These are traitors to the country, and we should shoot all those who give [drugs] to minors. It is not possible that this be allowed to continue,” she continued.

“I am not going to settle for keeping quiet for my safety. I know that I put my life and that of my family at risk, but what good is it being in authority if I do not have the courage to speak up when many men are silent?” she said, thanking her constituents for “not losing faith, for fighting against a strange virus, for maintaining Hermosillo as a place with opportunities, with economic development, with greater security, with greater social harmony, order and coexistence.” 

Her tough talk comes two days after the mayor inaugurated a new rehabilitation center for young addicts which will open September 21 with space for 86 young people in recovery, fulfilling a 2018 campaign promise to combat drug addiction.

Source: Reforma (sp)

Hungry bear spoils family barbecue, makes off with grilled meat

By
Susy Buchanan
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Black bear helps itself to some grilled meat.
Black bear helps itself to dinner.

A mother black bear joined a family barbecue in Santiago, Nuevo León, helping herself to meat right off the grill as family members looked on in surprise.

The family, who were vacationing in a cabin in the woods at the Pueblo Mágico, watched as the bear climbed onto the brick grill and made several attempts to remove the meat without burning its paws.

It also spilled a pot of previously grilled meat in the process as a bear cub stood by and waited for its dinner. 

The incident was captured on video and while some of the observers laughed and shouted at the animal to go away, one simply watched with his mouth agape as his dinner was taken.

Bear sightings in the state have been more frequent since the coronavirus pandemic began, and black bears have been seen roaming the streets of Monterrey, San Pedro and even Sabinas, Hidalgo, where a black bear was captured on August 20 walking in the middle of a street in the Hacienda Larraldeña neighborhood.

OSO EN CARNE ASADA EN MONTERREY

Two days earlier, a larger bear was captured in San Pedro in the Joya del la Corona area of Chipinque. 

In Monterrey, a small black bear ambled into an office last month and employees filmed its visit. The bear stood up on its hind legs and sniffed a man who remained motionless at his desk as another employee asked the bear calmly to open the door and leave, which the bear eventually did. 

In late July, a bear was photographed with a yellow bag in its mouth emblazoned with the logo of the Pollo Loco roasted chicken chain.

The photo was taken in San Pedro Garza García municipality located near the Chipinque ecological park where another people-curious bear was captured, castrated and released in a less populated area of the Chihuahua mountains. It had engaged in several close encounters, including one where the bear stood on its hind legs to sniff a woman’s hair as she snapped a selfie, violating park recommendations for proper bear behavior. 

In the United States, bears that lose their fear of people are often euthanized, but Mexican black bears are an endangered species and thus protected by law.

During an encounter with a bear, park rangers recommend keeping a safe distance from the animal and walking slowly away without running. 

Source: Excélsior (sp)

Medications shortages: cancer kills 6 children in 5 days in Nuevo León

By
MND Staff
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Parents of cancer patients protest shortage of medications in Mexico City.
Parents of cancer patients protest shortage of medications in Mexico City.

Six children with cancer who were unable to obtain chemotherapy drugs died in Nuevo León in a period of just five days this month.

The minors died between September 4 and 8 in hospitals in Monterrey, according to Verónica González, co-founder of an organization that supports the families of child cancer patients.

Candy Moya, founder of another civil society organization that helps parents buy medications for their sick children, said two of the children who died in Nuevo León were from that state and the other four were from Coahuila and Tamaulipas.

She said there has long been a shortage of drugs but it has worsened this year. Among the medications that have been difficult to obtain and whose prices have significantly increased are dexrazoxane, vincristine and cyclophosphamide.

One of the children who passed away was a 6-year-old boy with brain cancer.

His mother told the newspaper Reforma that her son was diagnosed in August 2019 and that his treatment had been adversely affected since April because some of the medications he needed were unavailable at the University Hospital in Monterrey.

He died on September 4 after his chemotherapy was delayed for weeks due to a lack of cyclophosphamide.

“If they’d treated …[him] on time this wouldn’t have happened,” said Reyna López. “His cancer returned and it consumed him.”

In addition to the five other children who died earlier this month, a 3-old-girl with leukemia died in Monterrey at the end of August after her treatment was affected by drug shortages.

González said that in the eight years since she co-founded Apadrina un Niñ@ (Support a Child), never have so many children died in one place in less than a week.

“The shortage [of medications] has a lot to do with it,” she said, adding that authorities are not giving the issue the attention it deserves. “Enough already, we’ve had this problem for more than a year now.”

Parents of children with cancer have protested against the shortages on numerous occasions since last year, most notably in Mexico City where young patients have also died after their treatment was delayed due to a lack of chemotherapy drugs.

The federal Health Ministry made a commitment in May to end the shortages of several cancer medications but more than three months later the problem has not been fully resolved.

Health Minister Jorge Alcocer said in mid-August that shipments of cancer drugs to last until the end of the year would arrive in the coming weeks but the shortages persist.

His assertion came after the federal government signed an agreement with the United Nations Office for Project Services to collaborate on the international purchase of medicines.

President López Obrador said at the time that the agreement would allow Mexico to obtain high quality medications all over the world at low prices and thus put an end to shortages.

Source: Reforma (sp), La Jornada (sp) 

Boy, 6, killed in crossfire between police, suspect in Tijuana

By
Susy Buchanan
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An investigator at the crime scene in Tijuana.
An investigator at the crime scene in Tijuana.

A 6-year-old boy died after being caught in the crossfire Wednesday during a shootout between police officers and a criminal suspect in Tijuana.

Municipal police were conducting surveillance in the Mariano Matamoros neighborhood when officers observed a man carrying a firearm. When they approached the man he began shooting at them and fled into a vacant lot next to the home of Yurem Abdiel González Carrasco.

The second-grader was playing in his yard with his 4-year-old sister when he was struck by a bullet in the abdomen.

The suspect was also shot and died at the scene.

Yurem was taken to the hospital where he died a few hours later.

The boy’s mother was inconsolable, demanding justice and a full investigation into the incident, including ballistics to find out who killed her son.

The media outlet Punto Norte reported that the bullet came from a rifle, which may mean that police fired the fatal shot.

So far this year, 1,430 people have been murdered in Tijuana, 71 in September alone.

There were 2,185 people killed last year, 334 fewer murders than the previous year.

Last year Tijuana was declared the most dangerous city in the world by the non-profit Citizen’s Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice with a murder rate of 134 per 100,000 inhabitants.

The second most dangerous city was Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua (104.54 homicides per 100,000), which is also on the border with the United States.

Source: El Sol de Tijuana (sp)

Wednesday rainfall most intense in 20 years: Mexico City mayor

By
Susy Buchanan
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A flooded parking garage in Mexico City.
A flooded parking garage in Mexico City.

Wednesday’s heavy rains in Mexico City were the most intense recorded in the past 20 years, Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday night, observing that there were only six occasions during that period when more than 100 millimeters of rain fell in a single day.

Streets and shopping malls were flooded, and downed trees blocked traffic as wind gusts of up to 59 kilometers per hour buffeted the city. Some parts of the city also saw hail.

Sheinbaum said it was striking that on two consecutive days, the weather stations recorded more than 100 mm per day on Tuesday and Wednesday. 

The storms were generated by an area of low pressure and tropical waves generated in the Gulf of Mexico, she said, a phenomenon that happens every 150 years. 

A purple, intense rain alert was declared in the municipalities of Coyoacán, Benito Juárez and Álvaro Obregón as the city’s government implemented “Operation Storm” in order to help with flooding, downed trees and car accidents, dispatching 96 officers with 21 vehicles and two tow trucks to attend to stranded cars. 

Various streets were flooded, and the Xoco hospital sustained a sewage leak inside the building’s emergency room and intensive care unit as well as its parking lot. 

At the Zapata Metro station, the steps were turned into a waterfall as water cascaded down. The station also reported water leaking in through the ventilation system on Lines 3 and 12.

Social media users shared photos and videos of widespread flooding, and some streets saw up to 35 mm of standing water. 

Civil Protection recommended that residents clear storm drains in order to keep them free of debris. 

A Walmart parking lot in Benito Juárez turned into a lake and customers climbed into shopping carts in order to reach their vehicles. Inside the store, aisles turned into rivers as water flooded in.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Death certificates reveal Covid fatalities under-reported by 10,000 in CDMX

By
MND Staff
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Coronavirus deaths in Mexico City were double the number reported.
Coronavirus deaths in Mexico City were double the number reported.

Covid-19 deaths in Mexico City were underreported by more than 10,000 during a period of six months to the end of August, an official report indicates.

An excess mortality report prepared by the Mexico City government by examining death certificates said there were 20,535 deaths attributable to Covid-19 in the capital by August 31.

On that date, Mexico City authorities said there were 10,508 confirmed Covid-19 deaths, 10,027 fewer than the figure cited in the report.

Of the 20,535 people whose deaths in Mexico City are attributable to Covid-19, 15,106 were residents of the capital while the bulk of the remainder lived in neighboring México state.

Deaths caused by Covid-19 rose between March and May before declining in the subsequent three months.

There were 13 fatalities attributable to Covid-19 in March, 1,454 in April, 5,631 in May, 3,735 in June, 2,347 in July and 1,926 in August, according to the report. In May, there was an average of 181.6 Covid-19 deaths per day among Mexico City residents.

Of the 15,106 residents of the capital whose deaths were attributable to Covid-19, about two-thirds were men and one-third were women.

The report said that 91.8% of Covid-19 fatalities in the capital occurred in the hospital, 6.8% at home and 1.4% somewhere else.

It also said there have been 61% more deaths than normal in Mexico City this year, a figure well below the excess mortality rate in some other cities that were hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic including Lima, Peru; Guayaquil, Ecuador; and New York City.

The sprawling, densely populated eastern borough of Iztapalapa has recorded the highest number of Covid-19 deaths in the capital followed by Gustavo A. Madero in the north and Álvaro Obregón in the west.

Mexico City, like the country as a whole, has a low Covid-19 testing rate. The lack of testing is the main reason why a large number of deaths attributable to Covid-19 are not officially recorded as such, at least in the short term, but rather attributed to causes such as atypical pneumonia.

Coronavirus cases and deaths reported by day.
Coronavirus cases and deaths in Mexico reported by day. milenio

The capital has been Mexico’s coronavirus epicenter since the beginning of the pandemic, consistently having the highest number of active cases among the nation’s 32 states and leading the country for accumulated cases and Covid-19 deaths.

According to federal Health Ministry estimates, there were 6,590 active cases in Mexico City on Wednesday, almost double the number in México state, which has the second highest active case tally with 3,496.

Mexico City accumulated confirmed case tally is 114,268 and its official death toll – excluding the more than 10,000 fatalities attributable to Covid-19 that weren’t recorded as such – is 11,351.

The national accumulated case tally increased to 680,931 on Wednesday with 4,444 new cases reported and the official Covid-19 death toll rose to 71,978 with 300 additional fatalities.

Source: El Universal (sp) 

Hospitals and a school among winners of ‘airplane raffle’

By
MND Staff
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0
Raffle tickets for Tuesday's draw were sold for 500 pesos each.
Raffle tickets for Tuesday's draw were sold for 500 pesos each.

Several hospitals and a preschool were among the winners of 20-million-peso (US $950,000) prizes in the “presidential plane” raffle, drawn at the National Lottery building in Mexico City on Tuesday.

With millions of the 500-peso tickets unsold, President López Obrador announced last week that the government would spend 500 million pesos on tickets and distribute them to public hospitals treating coronavirus patients.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) No. 1 General Hospital in Tepic, Nayarit, was the first raffle winner to be publicly identified after IMSS Nayarit announced its good fortune on Twitter.

IMSS said the money would be used to expand the hospital’s emergency department and carry out other renovations.

Other hospitals in possession of winning tickets were the State Workers Social Security Institute (ISSSTE) Hospital in Fresnillo, Zacatecas, the General Regional Hospital in Charo, Michoacán, the General Regional Hospital in Toluca, México state, the General Hospital in Boca del Río, Veracruz, the ISSSTE hospital in Tampico, Tamaulipas, the Comprehensive Hospital in San Ignacio, Sinaloa, and the General Hospital in Jojutla, Morelos.

Zacatecas Governor Alejandro Tello announced the Fresnillo hospital’s win on Twitter, saying it was “great news” for local residents insured by ISSSTE. The hospital should use the money to buy new equipment and upgrade its facilities, he said.

IMSS Michoacán said the hospital in Charo would use its prize to install a new facility where patients can be diagnosed and treated for cardiovascular disease, while IMSS in México state said that operating rooms at the Toluca facility would be upgraded, new elevators would be installed and equipment to treat children with heart problems would be purchased.

Luis Miguel Rodríguez González, director of the ISSSTE hospital in Tampico, said that a committee would be formed to decide how to spend the funds but indicated that they will be used to address “deficiencies” at the 54-year-old facility. “We’re happy,” he said.

Another lucky raffle winner was a community preschool in Aramberri, Nuevo León, which received its winning ticket as a gift from a businessman. The preschool will receive its 20-million-peso prize just a few months after it was renovated with federal funds

A total of 100 20-million-peso prizes were up for grabs in the raffle, with the combined 2-billion-peso prize pool roughly equal to the value of the luxuriously-outfitted Boeing 787 Dreamliner that the federal government has been trying to sell for almost two years.

Source: Reforma (sp), El Universal (sp), Milenio (sp) 

Ship that sank off Yucatán was carrying Mayan slaves to Cuba

By
MND Staff
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0
A porthole lies in the sand among other remains of La Unión.
A porthole lies in the sand among other remains of La Unión. helena barba

Experts with the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have identified a steamship that sank off the Yucatán Peninsula in the middle of the 19th century as a vessel that transported Mayan slaves to Cuba to work on sugar cane plantations.

The shipwreck of La Unión, a paddle-wheel steamship owned by a Spanish company that operated out of Havana, was discovered less than four kilometers off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico port town of Sisal, Yucatán, in 2017 by underwater archaeologists who were assisted by local residents.

The ship sank in September 1861 after it caught fire shortly after leaving Mexico for Cuba.

The underwater archaeologists initially named the ship Adalio after the grandfather of a local fisherman who guided them to the wreck site, INAH said in a statement on Tuesday.

The experts soon identified it as a steamship that was built in the mid 1800s. The base of its wooden hull was well preserved by sand that covered it and several other parts of the vessel were still in relatively good condition despite spending more than 150 years underwater.

Remains of a paddlewheel from the slave ship La Unión.
Remains of a paddlewheel from the slave ship La Unión. helena barba

Archaeologists also discovered everyday items that had been onboard the ship including brass cutlery and fragments of glass and ceramic bottles.

After a series of dives in 2017, experts with the INAH Underwater Archaeology Department (SAS) began searching through archives in Mexico, Cuba and Spain for records that might contain information about the sunken vessel.

After three years, they gathered enough information to confirm that the wreck they had found was of La Unión, INAH said. It is the first ship that transported Mayan slaves to have been located and identified.

Helena Barba Meinecke, head of the Yucatán office of the SAS, explained that the archaeologists were able to conclude that the ship was La Unión because newspaper articles and reports said the vessel had sunk in the area where it was found after its boilers exploded and it caught fire.

The archaeologists had discovered parts of exploded boilers and had noted that the ship’s wooden hull showed signs of fire damage.

During their research, the INAH experts learned that La Unión had been authorized to carry out trade voyages between Cuba and Mexico and that it docked in Sisal, formerly an important port, as well as Campeche, Veracruz and Tampico.

A diver explores the wreckage of the ship that sank near Sisal, Yucatán, in 1861. helena barba

It carried products such as henequen fiber, tanned leather, timber and deer skins to Cuba as well as passengers who traveled in the ship’s first, second and third classes.

In addition, the INAH experts found that La Unión transported Mayan people who had been either captured or tricked into believing that they were traveling to Cuba as free settlers and that land awaited them there.

The ship’s commanders worked with slave traders in Mexico even though slavery had already been outlawed. Between 1855 and 1861, a period during which the Caste War of Yucatán between Mayans and the European-descended population was taking place, an average of 25 to 30 slaves were sent to Cuba per month on La Unión, INAH said.

“Each slave was sold for up to 25 pesos to intermediaries and they could resell them in Havana for up to 160 pesos for men and 120 pesos for women,” Barba said.

A year before it sank, La Unión had been found transporting 29 Mayan people believed to be slaves including children aged as young as 7. Just months before the tragedy, then president Benito Juárez had issued a decree against the forced removal of Mayan people from their land.

But the Mayan slave trade continued.

It wasn’t until after La Unión sank in 1861 that the Mexican government increased its search efforts at ports to prevent the trafficking of people to Cuba, INAH said.

Half of the 80 crew members and 60 passengers on board perished after the ship caught fire and sank, the institute said, adding that the number of Mayan slaves who died are not included in those figures because they were considered goods rather than people.

Mexico News Daily 

If you like a nap, Mexico is not the best place to be

By
Sarah DeVries
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barking dog
Nap time? Forget it.

I’ve always been an early riser. When the sun starts coming up, my eyes start opening on their own while the thoughts in my brain start darting around. Though I can occasionally stay in bed until 9 or 10, I’m usually up by 8 a.m. or so if I’ve managed to stay asleep until daylight.

Oh, but I do love naps. I’d say that I like them especially when I didn’t sleep well the night before, but the truth is I think I’m one of those people that just needs 10 hours of sleep every 24-hour period in order to feel well rested. Getting those all in at the same time is not reasonable under the circumstances, and I usually tap out on my night sleep somewhere between six to eight hours.

So, my ideal sleep schedule involves a one or two-hour afternoon nap, which is just not reasonable in my part of Mexico, and probably not in most.

Why, you may ask. In part it’s because I have a child and school is indefinitely not in session. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been almost entirely asleep and she’s woken me up to watch a specific part that she’s excited about of whatever movie I’ve put on for her in order to get my nap in the first place. I’ve also been woken to look for missing toys that are suddenly an emergency and of course for snacks.

She’s actually not my primary source of nap interruption, though: it’s people coming to the door.

Easily five people a day ring my doorbell. Though it makes me grouchy when it happens during my nap, I can hardly be mad at them. It’s common even when we’re not in the middle of a pandemic, and these are especially hard times.

Sometimes it’s the guys who carry off trash in their truck, an appreciated service in a city with rather unreliable and unpredictable trash collection (plus, I have to carry it a few blocks away because the truck apparently can’t make it up to where I live).

Other times, it’s the man and his cute son that sell fruits and vegetables door to door. There’s an indigenous woman and young child who speak very little Spanish that sell flowers as well, and the Yakult (those tiny probiotic yogurt drinks) lady comes every Wednesday.

I can also expect the guy decked out in military gear who “protects” the neighborhood by walking around during the night blowing a whistle at least once a week to collect his 10-peso “voluntary” donation.

Unfortunately, the people that came around selling ice cream haven’t been back in a while. But I have been able to buy pens that double as smartphone cleaners, made-in-China 3D puzzles of houses that my daughter adores even though they’re even less than dollar-store quality, and the occasional lollypop in exchange for a donation to some kind of good cause or idea of a good cause.

And since this is the pandemic, we’re having quite a few things delivered: groceries, packages, medical devices for my house guest with mold allergies.

When people seem curious about moving to Mexico, one of my first warnings is this: if you value silence, quiet neighborhoods, and generally being left alone, this is not the place for you.

If my daughter or the doorbell ringing doesn’t wake me up, the neighbor’s dog does: it’s situated on the side of the house in a little strip of a patio that seems like it was designed specifically to make lonely animals neurotic. We don’t live on a busy street, but anything that passes in front of the house — human, animal, something on wheels, a piece of plastic being carried by the wind — will usually set it off.

The acoustics are such that when it starts barking, the noise goes right into the rooms at the front of my house. Turning up the TV volume isn’t enough; it must be paused until the dog quiets down again. The neighbors are well-meaning and have tried to keep it quiet, but in the end it’s a “guard dog” for all of us, and the unfortunate acoustics of our two places are not their fault.

What other sounds might you hear? Well, there’s the person that runs up and down the streets with a cowbell to let you know that you’ve got perhaps a 15-minute window of opportunity to take out the trash.

There’s the “gas” song that blares from the truck to let you know they’re around. If you need a new tank for cooking and heating your shower that’s your cue to run out the front door and flag them down.

There’s the high-pitched whistle of the guy who will sharpen your knives for you. Then of course there are the people selling elotes, tamales (which doesn’t happen nearly enough on my street, if you ask me; I should have proposed to the guy selling those delicious mole tamales when I had the chance), and others who are offering to buy your large domestic appliances, which they let you know about through a megaphone stuck to the roof of their car.

The notion of telling children to quiet down seems about as logical to most people here as getting mad at the wind for blowing, and if a neighbor or five is having a party nearby, you’ll get to hear all of their music and probably some loud, drunk conversations as well. Most Mexicans, including my daughter, don’t seem to be bothered in the least by all of these noises. I, as a grouchy, bougie gringa, seem to be the only one having to stop herself from jumping up and down like Rumplestiltskin throwing a tantrum when the doorbell’s just been rung for the sixth time in as many hours.

My saving grace? I have a bad ear. While I can’t ignore my child or the doorbell if I’m expecting a delivery, I can lie on my “good” ear and be at least a little deaf to the world. So if you live in Mexico and value silence, I recommend that you learn to accept any one-sided hearing loss as a blessing in disguise.

Sarah DeVries writes from her home in Xalapa, Veracruz.

Artisans reopen in Mexico City but there are few customers

By
MND Staff
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Life-sized, Huichol beaded deer at the Ciudadela market. andy hume

Vendors of arts and crafts have reopened their market shops and stalls in Mexico City but business is slow as the coronavirus pandemic continues to put a damper on economic activity and the arrival of tourists on whom they heavily depend.

The Ciudadela crafts market in the capital’s downtown area reopened in July but only half of its approximately 350 shops are permitted to open on any given day, said Cuauhtémoc Ilhuicatzi, a vendor and member of an artisans’ association that manages the facility.

“We have to close completely on Sundays, the opening hours are reduced [10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.] and only 50% of the shops … can open. In addition, we can only have a customer capacity of 40%,” he said.

Limiting customers to 40% of normal levels, however, is not currently a difficult task.

The Ciudadela market, where a wide range of products are on offer including textiles, ceramics, traditional Mexican toys, jewelry and gold and silverware, is completely dead, said the owner of a shop selling clay figurines.

The shopkeeper, identified only as Candelaria, told the newspaper El Universal that she is currently making only two or three sales a day whereas in pre-pandemic times she would make 15 to 20.

“The situation is very bad. We stopped working for five months and we were only able to reopen our shops a month ago. The problem is that there are no people but we’re here now waiting for tourists because we live off them,” she said.

“My whole life has been in the market and we’ve never experienced anything similar.”

Silvia Barrientos, who works in Tejidos Típicos (Typical Fabrics), a family business founded by her father 45 years ago, recounted a similar story.

She said there are some days when she fails to make a single sale at her family’s shop, which sells a range of products including sarapes, rugs, tablecloths, sombreros and rebozos.

Barrientos added that the business has been unable to source new products from its suppliers in Tlaxcala because some textile factories were shut down after they failed to comply with health restrictions.

Foreign customers say they don't know when they will travel to Mexico.
Foreign customers say they don’t know when they will travel to Mexico.

She also said that Tejidos Típicos has a lot of regular foreign customers who normally come to Mexico to pick up their orders. However, they haven’t made it here this year due to the pandemic.

“All my foreign customers canceled orders. They told me they didn’t know when they would travel to Mexico, although they did specify that they wouldn’t come this year,” Barrientos said.

Ilhuicatzi, the artisans’ association member, acknowledged that businesses in the market are struggling but added that “the important thing is that we’re now working.”

About one kilometer from the Ciudadela market is the historic center’s MULT market where indigenous Triqui people, originally from Oaxaca, sell their wares.

Emilia, who sells clothes she makes including traditional blouses and guayaberas – semi-formal shirts often worn at weddings – told El Universal that the market has been very quiet and that sales have been few and far between.

She also started making face masks which she sells for 50 pesos each but despite stocking one of the most in-demand fashion items she remains concerned about being able to pay the rent.

Vendors at both the Ciudadela and MULT markets complained that there has been no federal government support for the arts, crafts and traditional clothing sector even though it’s an important part of the economy.

Ilhuicatzi said that the Ciudadela market hasn’t received any support from local authorities either because it’s not considered a Mexico City public market.

“We have to survive with our own resources,” he said, adding that some market vendors have had to barter goods for groceries in order to feed their families.

More than 1 million people work in the arts and crafts sector in Mexico and the majority, including the artisans themselves, have seen their income slashed during the coronavirus pandemic.

Source: El Universal (sp) 

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