AMLO criticizes US for quick support of Ukraine while stalling on Central America

By

-

March 22, 2022

lopez obrador — 'Support for our Central American brothers hasn't been approved in four years,' the president said at Tuesday's press conference.

President López Obrador on Tuesday questioned why the United States Congress is taking so long to approve aid for Central American countries when it promptly authorized resources to help Ukraine in its war against Russia.

The United States Senate gave final approval to a US $13.6 billion emergency military and humanitarian aid package for Ukraine earlier this month.

Speaking at his regular news conference, López Obrador said that in a meeting last week with United States Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas he insisted on the need for the U.S. to support El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala in order to stem migration.

“Nobody leaves their community, abandons their family for pleasure. They do it out of need,” he said.

“We’ve been saying this for a long time and we’ve been unable to get a favorable response. … We have to attend to the people of Central America, our Central American brothers, so that they have hope of being able to live with dignity, like they deserve,” López Obrador said.

The president noted that Mexico has extended the Sowing Life tree-planting employment program and the Youths Building the Future apprenticeship scheme to Central America before stressing that what his government wants is for the United States to invest in the region as well.

“We’re proposing that Sowing Life and Youths Building the Future be expanded. We’re already helping but of course we don’t have enough resources,” he said.

The Mexican and U.S. governments announced a new framework for development cooperation in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador late last year, but López Obrador said the approval of U.S. funding for Central America has been stalled for four years.

The U.S. Congress “just authorized resources for Ukraine and that’s fine because it’s their policy to protect Ukraine, they’ve decided that,” he said.

“… The United States Congress approved it in two days, I believe, but the support for our Central American brothers hasn’t been approved in four years,” López Obrador said.

“That’s what [Mayorkas and I] spoke about. And it’s not just about employment in Central America but also … the possibility of [Central Americans] obtaining temporary work visas [for the United States], putting migration flows in order, really changing migration policy,” he said.

AMLO also questioned why a commitment to regularize the migratory status of more than 10 million Mexicans who “live and work honestly in the United States” hasn’t been acted upon.

“Why is this initiative stalled in the Congress? Isn’t it important? Why don’t they approve the resources for Central America?” he asked.

“I saw what was approved for Ukraine. … With all respect, it was an amount much greater than what’s needed to support the poor people of Central American and Caribbean countries,” López Obrador said.

“The truth is the [bilateral] relation is very good but there is a lot of bureaucracy there as well. I think that the [United States] elephant is bigger and more rheumatic than ours,” López Obrador said, once again using the world’s largest land animal as a metaphor for cumbersome bureaucracy.

With reports from Reforma and El Universal

Home construction scheme defrauded more than 100 people in Oaxaca

By

MND Staff

-

March 22, 2022

0

Some of the victims of a construction scam in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

A law firm in Oaxaca allegedly defrauded more than 100 people with a home construction scam. Two years after they parted with their cash, the mostly poor victims are still waiting for justice – and to get their money back.

A group of 45 people who say they collectively lost more than 700,000 pesos (US $34,500) are among those who reported the apparent fraud to state authorities. The accused are due to appear in court on Wednesday.

According to a report by the newspaper El Universal, Isthmus of Tehuantepec residents handed over between 10,000 and 20,000 pesos (US $493-$986) each to Ciudad Ixtepec-based law firm Posada y Asocia2 in 2020 on the understanding they were paying for the construction of environmentally-friendly homes that would be completed in just six weeks.

The law firm was promoting an eco-home construction program, and claimed it was collaborating with the global humanitarian organization Action Against Hunger, according to documents the residents received.

However, the homes were never built and the residents have been unable to recover their money.

María de los Ángeles Juárez, a resident of the municipality of Matías Romero, told El Universal that she first heard about the scheme from a woman called Amanda Toledo, a municipal employee in Juchitán who apparently collaborated on the alleged fraud with Posada y Asocia2.

She said that Toledo offered the construction of eight homes for needy people in Matías Romero. The price per house was just 10,000 pesos.

To gain people’s confidence, Posada y Asocia2 showed those interested a model home that was built in a poor neighborhood of Juchitán. The law firm also began construction of one home in Matías Romero, but it was never completed. Ricardo Posada of Posada y Asocia2 said that a lack of building materials prevented its conclusion.

At that time, the law firm had already received eco-home payments from more than 100 people.

“I trusted Amanda and looked for people who really had a need for a home,” de los Ángeles said.

“I started with eight people, but my group grew to 50. Later another group with more than 100 people was created but I’m only speaking about my group, which was defrauded more than 700,000 pesos,” she said.

Many of the people who thought they would get new homes live in the Oaxaca municipality of Matías Romero.

“They’re poor people, all of them had to look for the money in order to hand over 10,000 pesos, … some gave 20,000 pesos for two houses. It really was a fraud,” de los Ángeles said.

She discovered that people in the towns of Juchitán, Ixhuatán and Ixtepec, among others, were swindled by Posada y Asocia2.

The law firm didn’t respond to a request from El Universal to offer its version of events. De los Ángeles said that complaints against 15 people, including Toledo and Posada, were filed with the Oaxaca Attorney General’s Office.

The accused were summoned to a court hearing last Wednesday but didn’t show up. They are scheduled to appear at a second hearing on Wednesday.

One of the alleged victims is Julieta Rueda, a 69-year-old Matiás Romero woman who paid 20,000 pesos for two homes. Unsurprisingly, she regrets handing over her money to Posada y Asocia2.

Among the other alleged victims are the sisters Eva and Elsa Santiago Sánchez, Zapotec textile artisans in Álvaro Obregón, a community in Juchitán.

Other artisans and tortilla chip makers were also deceived by the law firm, El Universal reported, noting that one group of 32 women gave 220,000 pesos to Posada y Asocia2 and spent more than 400,000 pesos on foundations for the promised eco-homes.

Some women were convinced to buy a home after they were given rice, beans and sugar free of charge, said Eva Santiago.

“In the town of Álvaro Obregón the women are poor and survive with what they sell. A lot pawned their jewelry, sold their animals and asked for loans to be able to give the money [to Posada y Asocia2],” she said.

“… We believed in Ricardo Posada because we needed a home, … but we were deceived,” said tortilla chip maker Rosalida Pineda López.

With reports from El Universal

National soccer team at risk of losing berth to World Cup in Qatar

By

MND Staff

-

March 22, 2022

0

Players on Mexico's national team in training this week for Thursday's game against the US.

The national soccer team is on a nervous home straight in its bid to qualify for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

El Tri, as the team is commonly known, has three qualifying games remaining and sits in third place in the Concacaf (Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football) standings.

However, a win by either Panama or Costa Rica could see the national team lose the opportunity to compete among the world’s 32 best soccer nations in November.

Only the top three of the eight Concacaf nations will automatically qualify for the World Cup, while the fourth-placed team has a chance to qualify through an inter-confederation playoff match.

Mexico’s team faces the United States — a team they’ve already lost to three times in the space of a year — on Thursday at Mexico City’s Aztec Stadium at 8 p.m. They lost 2-0 in a qualifying game in November and fell short twice to their closest rivals earlier in 2021 in other tournaments.

The U.S. is tied in the standings with Mexico with 21 points, but is ahead on goal difference. At the top of the standings is Canada with 25 points, meaning it has all but qualified.

Mexico’s dreams of Qatar were looking particularly shaky near the end of January when the team played out a stalemate at home to Costa Rica, but a crucial 1-0 victory over Panama on February 2 will have come as sweet relief to the country’s soccer faithful.

El Tri faces Honduras away on March 27 before its final qualifying game at home to El Salvador on March 30.

If the team drops four points from its final three games, players’ plane tickets to the Middle East could be in jeopardy. If they can win two matches out of three, they’ll be safe.

The Stars and Stripes will be without a full strength lineup for Thursday’s match after Juventus player Weston McKennie and Barcelona’s Sergiño Dest were forced to pull out because of injury.

El Tri won’t be at full strength either: goalkeeper Jonathan Orozco and midfielder Rodolfo Pizarro have both ruled themselves out of the match.

With reports from El Universal, Marca and La Razón

AIFA: Transportation issues, lack of services cause inconveniences for travelers

By

MND Staff

-

March 22, 2022

0

A lack of services in the terminal building of the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) and difficulties getting to and from the new facility marred the experience of travelers who used the airport on its first day of operations.

Banks, currency exchange offices and food and beverage outlets at the AIFA – located approximately 50 kilometers north of Mexico City in México state – were not operational on Monday, according to a report by El Universal.

An information kiosk employee told the newspaper that banks and exchange offices will open in the coming days.

“There will be an HSBC and BBVA but they’re not operating today. There are no food outlets [open]. There will be more services as activities at the airport normalize,” the employee said.

While the services usually on offer at an international airport were not available, a number of informal vendors set up shop, hawking merchandise that included AIFA-related memorabilia. One enterprising woman set up a tlayuda stand and attracted a long lineup of hungry customers.

A resident of the Mexico City borough of Álvaro Obregón who traveled to the AIFA to take the inaugural flight to Caracas, Venezuela, described the new airport as “modern and very nice” but added that some fine-tuning is needed.

Ernesto Rodríguez also said that the installation of road signs to direct motorists to the facility from Mexico City would be helpful.

Alejandro Ortega told El Universal that getting to the airport from Huixquilucan, a México state municipality some 70 kilometers away, took almost three hours because navigation apps weren’t familiar with the route.

“It was a disaster honestly,” he said, explaining that the protracted route selected by Waze and Google Maps added 1 1/2 hours to his travel time.

“It took us almost three hours; two hours and 48 minutes,” said Ortega, whose mother-in-law was booked on the flight to Caracas which, like many other incoming and outgoing services on Monday, wasn’t on time.

Passengers who arrived at the AIFA on the first flights into the new airport also faced transport problems. Those who chose to leave on a Mexibús service endured wait times of over an hour due to the limited number of buses in operation, El Universal reported.

Passengers looking for a taxi found few options and high prices. An official at the sole taxi stand said that demand for taxis exceeded expectations. The 33 taxis that were dispatched to the airport to provide initial service were quickly taken, he said.

El Universal reported that a taxi trip to the center of Mexico City cost 812 pesos (US $40), while a journey to the southern neighborhood of Portales was slightly more expensive at 890 pesos. Hiring a car was cheaper, with companies such as Hertz offering a vehicle for 550 pesos per day with a 200-peso fee for dropping it off in central Mexico City.

Some passengers complained about the lack of internet signal to arrange a pick up via Uber, but there were reports that ride-sharing companies were prohibited from entering the AIFA precinct.

Private companies offered van and bus services to destinations such as Santa Fe, the Mundo E shopping center, the Observatorio bus terminal and Toluca, the capital of México state. The price of tickets was substantially lower than a taxi fare, and the drivers – unlike some people who traveled to the AIFA on Monday – presumably knew where they were going.

With reports from El Universal

Mother gives birth outside clinic after being told to return later

By

MND Staff

-

March 21, 2022

0

Workers clean up outside the Raymundo Abarca Alarcón General Hospital after the birth.

A mother in Guerrero gave birth outside a clinic on Saturday after being told that the birth was still hours away.

Lisel, 24, arrived with her mother and husband, Margarito de la Cruz Sánchez, at the Guerrero children’s and mother’s hospital in Chilpancingo at 6 a.m., but was told she wasn’t ready to give birth. Medical staff instructed her to return in two hours, according to de la Cruz.

Due to her intense pain, the family opted to travel across the city to the emergency ward at Raymundo Abarca Alarcón General Hospital arriving there at 7:30 a.m. Lisel was attended to by medical personnel, but was again told that her dilations were still in an early phase and that she should return two hours later.

Lisel collapsed at the entrance of the emergency ward suffering from intense pain. She started to bleed and gave birth to a baby girl on the floor without any medical support at around 8:20 a.m.

However, the Guerrero Health Ministry gave a different version of events. In a statement released on Saturday afternoon, it said that Lisel was never refused medical attention and was responsible for the manner of the birth. It explained that staff had told Lisel to walk inside the hospital to accelerate her dilations, but that she chose to leave the ward to search for her husband.

The statement confirmed that both Lisel and the newborn girl were in a stable condition.

The same hospital came under fire last month for refusing to give an abortion to a 9-year-old rape victim. The child requested the abortion and provided a legal complaint to evidence the crime against her, but medical personnel tried to convince her to reconsider, the newspaper El Universal reported.

The girl had an abortion three days later in the children’s and mother’s hospital.

With reports from El Universal

Lila Downs dedicates Bellas Artes concerts to her Mixtec grandmother

By

MND Staff

-

March 21, 2022

0

Lila Downs, a Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter from Oaxaca, is dedicating her two concerts in Mexico City this week to hardworking women such as her Mixtec grandmother.

The Tlaxiaco native will perform at the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts) in the capital’s historic center on Tuesday and Wednesday.

In an interview with the newspaper Reforma, the singer and recording artist noted that her maternal grandmother, Matilde Sánchez, was a vendor of pulque, a pre-Hispanic alcoholic beverage made with the sap of the maguey plant.

Downs said that performing for the first time in the “sacred precinct” of the Palacio de Bellas Artes gives her the opportunity to represent her grandmother and other hardworking women. “She taught me what is sacred about life,” she said of Sánchez.

Downs, the daughter of a Mixtec mother and a father from the United States, said that although she has never performed at Bellas Artes, she considers her upcoming concerts a homecoming because she studied opera there when she was a teenager before going on to study singing and social anthropology in the U.S.

“I started at Bellas Artes when I was 16 years old and I return, in this cycle of life, in my 50s, transformed,” she said.

“Moreover, I return with this song of women, which is very important for me,” said the Grammy and Latin Grammy-winning singer.

Social injustice, migration, women’s struggles, identity and spirituality are some of the themes Downs explores in her heartfelt songs. One was inspired by a tree she looked at through a window of her home every morning during the initial pandemic lockdown period.

In making her music, which spans genres including jazz, rock, ranchera and cumbia, Downs said she has taken inspiration and advice from her mother, Anita Sánchez, who was also a singer.

“I even started paying attention to my mother’s words; she told me ‘Lila, sing with feeling or don’t sing at all,’” she said.

Following her two concerts at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, Downs will embark on a tour of the United States before heading to Europe.

With reports from Reforma

Long weekend gives tourist industry a much-needed boost

By

MND Staff

-

March 21, 2022

0

Hotel occupancy in Cancún and several other Quintana Roo destinations was over 85% for the holiday weekend. Archive photo

With the coronavirus threat on the wane, tourists flocked to destinations across Mexico this long weekend, bringing much-needed revenue to a sector that has been hit hard by the pandemic and associated restrictions.

Beach resorts such as Cancún and Acapulco, colonial cities including Taxco and Zacatecas and some lesser known destinations all saw an influx of tourists for the March 19-21 puente, an annual long weekend to mark the anniversary of the birth of former president Benito Juárez.

Hotel occupancy in the Quintana Roo destinations of Cancún, Puerto Morelos and Isla Mujeres was above 85%, according to the local hotel association, while the state Tourism Ministry reported that more than 400,000 tourists were visiting the Caribbean coast.

There were 573 incoming and outgoing flights at the Cancún airport on Sunday, including 210 international arrivals, the newspaper El Universal reported.

The Guerrero Tourism Ministry reported that hotel occupancy was above 77% in Acapulco on Sunday, while occupancy was 1% higher in Zihuatanejo-Ixtapa at 78.3%. The occupancy rate in Taxco, a colonial city with a rich silver mining history, was 72.6%, the ministry said on Twitter.

More than 70% of hotel rooms were occupied in Taxco, Guerrero. Archive photo

The Oaxaca Tourism Ministry said that at least 50,000 visitors were expect to descend on Puerto Escondido, Huatulco and Oaxaca city. It predicted an injection of some 184 million pesos (US $9 million) into the local economy.

In Guanajuato, visitors flocked to the Santuario de Cristo Rey, a religious precinct in the municipality of Silao.

“It’s a sea of people,” José Cruz Luna, a volunteer, told El Universal. A seminarian told the newspaper that it was the biggest crowd seen at the site since the start of the pandemic.

Domestic and international tourists were among the visitors. Ramón, a seller of traditional sweets, said that he and other vendors were benefiting from the influx.

Farther north, the state of Zacatecas reported the arrival of more than 7,000 tourists for the long weekend. They were expected to spend some 23 million pesos (US $1.1 million) in the northern state, tourism authorities said.

Some of the visitors were attending “destination weddings,” the Tourism Ministry said. Others enjoyed attractions in Zacatecas city such as museums, churches, the cable car, the El Edén mine and the pretty streets of the historic center.

Among the other destinations that saw significant numbers of visitors were Playa Miramar, a beach in Ciudad Madero, Tamaulipas, and the Tula archaeological site in Hidalgo.

Carlos Rodríguez, his wife and their two children traveled more than 500 kilometers from Monterrey to visit the Tamaulipas coast. Authorities in Hidalgo were expecting a total of approximately 10,000 visitors over the weekend at the Tula site, which features Atlantean columns atop a pyramid.

Federal Tourism Minister Miguel Torruco said in a statement earlier this month that 2.7 million Mexicans were expected to travel within the country for the long weekend. He also said that 1.42 million tourists, including foreigners, were expected to stay at hotels, a figure that equates to 84.6% of 2019 numbers for the March long weekend. The nationwide hotel occupancy rate was predicted to be 55.8%, which would represent an increase of almost 20 points compared to last year.

Torruco anticipated that spending on accommodation over the long weekend would add up to more than 3.8 billion pesos and that the total outlay on tourism-related services would be 41.6 billion pesos (just over US $2 billion).

Tourism slumped in 2020 due to the pandemic before recovering somewhat in 2021. However, international tourist numbers were still almost 30% below 2019 levels last year.

With reports from El Universal, El Financiero and ZHN

Officials kill white tiger found roaming near a Querétaro town

By

MND Staff

-

March 21, 2022

0

Local residents captured video (screenshot at right) of the white tiger that wandered the streets of La Peña, Querétaro.

A large white tiger killed by authorities in Querétaro could be the feline that had been attacking livestock in Guanajuato, authorities said.

State officials opted to kill the animal due to the threat it posed to local people after livestock was attacked just hours earlier, the Querétaro state coordination for Civil Protection (CEPCQ) said on Sunday.

The state hopping feline was spotted by people in the community of La Peña in Huimilpan, a village close to the Guanajuato border and Apaseo el Grande, where sightings of a tiger and attacks on livestock were reported in February. Apaseo el Grande is 23 kilometers east of Celaya, while La Peña is about 39 kilometers south of Querétaro city.

Municipal police, Civil Protection agents and an animal control unit all helped to kill and transport the tiger.

But a Guanajuato animal advocacy group that consulted on the case of the Apaseo el Grande livestock attacks said it is not the same animal.

“When there was the reported sighting of the tiger in the area of Apaseo el Grande, the residents said at that time that it was an orange animal; that was always the description that was used,” said Erik Laguna, the coordinator of the organization Conexión Animal.

What’s more, the tracks found in Apaseo el Grande were those of an adolescent animal, Laguna said, while the white tiger killed in Querétaro appears to have been an adult.

The livestock attacks began in Apaseo in December, but it wasn’t until February 19 that the mayor, José Luis Ontiveros Usabiaga, felt there was enough evidence of the presence of a tiger to issue a warning.

Ontiveros said in February that 16 cattle had been attacked and told people to watch their children, remain in populated areas and keep their livestock safe. The communities put on alert were Comonfort, Pichacho, Potrero and Rosales.

The CEPCQ said it plans to compare samples in order to determine whether the white tiger killed was the same animal seen in Apaseo el Grande.

Appearances of the Asian predator in Mexico are disconcertingly common: in November, a Bengal tiger was captured near the Tapalpa-Atemajac highway in Jalisco, and drivers stopped to take its photograph, the newspaper Milenio reported.

On March 12, a Bengal tiger was captured in a house in Chimalhuacán, México state, and a cub was rescued in Celaya, Guanajuato, last week.

Meanwhile, three Bengal tigers under the responsibility of federal and state authorities died of starvation in a cage in Guerrero in February.

With reports from El Universal, Infobae and El Financiero

Will López Obrador’s new Mexico City airport take off?

By

Christine Murray

-

March 21, 2022

0

President López Obrador salutes onlookers at the opening of the new airport on Monday.

Mexico City’s new airport will boast a paleontology museum, a housing complex for the military and a terminal with lucha libre-themed bathrooms. What is not yet clear is how many passengers will choose to use it.

Felipe Ángeles International Airport, which is about 40 kilometres from the city center and began operating Monday, will offer just seven passenger routes. Airline industry experts said crucial access infrastructure and more commercial incentives were still missing.

The only international flight from Felipe Ángeles is with Venezuela state carrier Conviasa to Caracas. President López Obrador said on Friday that he spoke to executives at U.S. airline Delta, which owns a stake in national flag carrier Aeroméxico, and that it was considering whether to add flights. Delta declined to comment.

The Mexican capital — with a metro area home to more than 20 million people — has experienced a decades-long aviation headache as policymakers failed to increase capacity.

One of López Obrador’s first acts as president was to scrap a partly-built US $13-billion Norman Foster-designed airport he said was mired in corruption, a move that rattled investors and signaled that his radical promises were not just campaign trail rhetoric.

López Obrador instead proceeded with the more modest Felipe Ángeles project, named after a revolutionary general. Like his other infrastructure plans, it was built by the military. After two and a half years of construction local media estimates the building will cost about 115 billion pesos ($5.6 billion).

“This project will benefit a lot of people, not just those that live in Las Lomas,” López Obrador said on Friday, referring to a high-income neighbourhood in the capital. “Little by little [the airlines] will come around and they will take all the spaces in the new airport.”

The lack of air capacity has long held back the capital’s economic growth and business leaders and economists argue that the decision to choose a network of medium-sized airports instead of one large hub would continue to hurt investment.

“In the best-case scenario if it’s successful . . . [Felipe Ángeles is] a medium-sized airport, it’s not proportionate to the needs of Mexico City,” said Luis de la Calle, a board member of Aeroméxico who spoke in his capacity as an economic consultant.

“The main beneficiaries of Mexico City not having a big airport are airports in other parts of Mexico and other places in the U.S.,” he added. Mexico City airport received 50 million passengers in 2019, roughly the same as the U.K.’s Gatwick airport. The Mexican government said Felipe Ángeles would initially have capacity for 20 million passengers, but airline executives said it needed strong financial incentives to keep ticket prices low as well as access roads and a train in order to grow.

On Thursday, just days ahead of its opening, hundreds of construction workers were still working on partly-built bridges and roads and digging ditches; not all the work will be finished in time for the official launch.

VivaAerobus and Volaris are two of the four airlines that have begun operating out of Felipe Ángeles.

The government says a train taking airport passengers to and from the city center in 39 minutes will be ready in the second half of 2023.

“Airports in other parts of the world that are connected by train work very well,” said Juan Carlos Zuazua, chief executive of Mexican low-cost carrier VivaAerobus, who cited London’s Stansted as an example.

Felipe Ángeles’ airport passenger tax will be less than half that at Mexico City airport. But given its similar operating costs, combined with initially slower and more expensive transport from large swaths of the city, airlines would need more incentives to attract passengers, industry executives said.

Zuazua said the project would work but the government had to provide good incentives and connectivity. “It’ll be a success but in the medium [or] long term, it won’t be overnight.”

The airport’s commercial strategy will be in the hands of the military, which López Obrador has also put in charge of critical infrastructure from trains to ports.

Raúl Benítez Manaut, a professor at the National Autonomous University of México who has studied the country’s security forces, said López Obrador sees the military as more honest and efficient than bureaucrats. However, their ability to operate large-scale infrastructure is unproven and comes with governance risks.

“They have the capacity to administer resources to build things, but not to run a business,” he said. “It’s militarization of areas that should be civilian . . . it’s bad for a democracy.” Mexico’s defense ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Like airlines around the world, Mexico’s carriers were thrown into turmoil by the coronavirus pandemic. Aeroméxico has just emerged from bankruptcy protection, while budget airline Interjet is also restructuring. Last year the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration downgraded Mexico’s aviation safety rating, which means it cannot add new flights to its main international destination. Airline executives said they expect the country to be upgraded again in the coming months.

Zuazua at VivaAerobus said the industry was ready to scale up flights at the new airport if it makes commercial sense — but the government could not force the issue. “In the end, we respond to consumer demand.”

Tulum businessman creates shelter for Ukrainian refugees

By

MND Staff

-

March 21, 2022

0

From left to right, Anatonaly, Alberto Refugio Gonzalez, and Sergey. — From left, Anatonaly, Alberto Refugio Gonzalez, and Sergey. Screenshot

A businessman in Tulum has opened the doors of his ranch to Ukrainian refugees.

After Alberto Refugio González managed to get his ex-wife and son out of Ukraine, he decided to extend his help to Ukrainians stranded in Mexico.

A small three-story building formerly used as offices on the Tulum-Valladolid highway, surrounded by ducks, turkeys and chickens, has become the temporary home of Sergey and Anatonaly. The first people to take González up on his offer, they are being given food, water and a place to sleep. They wash their clothes in buckets and are waiting to have an internet connection to call their families.

In their suitcases they have all their belongings: four t-shirts, two pairs of shoes, a pair of shorts and a souvenir of the pyramids of the Teotihuacán ruins near Mexico City.

The two friends arrived in Mexico on February 19 before Russian forces launched a full-scale invasion of their homeland on February 24. They were unable to find flights home and despite assurances by the Ukrainian Embassy in Mexico that they could fly to Paris, they were not permitted to board for unknown reasons.

“I came to Mexico on vacation on February 19 and in the following days the situation began. In those days, my vacation ended … It’s hard to say how I feel because it’s hard to explain. I don’t know what to tell you, I’m safe in Mexico but my family is in Ukraine and it’s very dangerous,” Sergey said.

Anatonaly said that despite the war, they would both prefer to return to Ukraine to be with their families. “It’s beautiful, but I don’t know what to do in this country. If I have the opportunity I will return to Ukraine,” he said.

González said his family’s struggle to leave Ukraine motivated him to provide assistance to Ukrainians in Mexico.

“My son and his mother left the first town. Then they fought to get a place on the train because the trains were no longer letting people on … they got taken to the border town. It was very difficult, that’s where the humanitarian crisis is really happening,” he said.

“We published the offer to provide accommodation in a [social media] group of Ukrainians in Mexico … because we saw that many people are stranded in Cancun, in Los Cabos and in Vallarta. All over the place tourists who came on vacation were not able to leave,” González added.

Since February 24, more than 3 million Ukrainians have left their country as refugees, according to the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The Foreign Ministry and the air force have helped Mexicans and their families escape Ukraine. So far, at least 143 people have been evacuated from the war-torn country, the newspaper Milenio reported.

With reports from Milenio