From hawk to hitman: how criminal gangs recruit youths to their ranks

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October 13, 2021

bullet holes in a wall — Youths are frequently recruited by organized crime in communities where violence has become normal.

Eduardo was a cartel lookout at 13, selling drugs at 15 and trained to become a hitman a short time later. Unfortunately, his story is far from unique: approximately 30,000 minors work for organized crime gangs, according to the Network for Children’s Rights in Mexico (REDIM).

The testimonies of 67 of them are compiled in a new report by Reinserta, a civil society organization that helps ex-prisoners reintegrate into society.

Presented by the organization on Wednesday, Boys, girls and adolescents recruited by organized crime details how criminal organizations recruit young people and outlines reasons why some youths are susceptible to recruitment.

Based on studies conducted in Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas (the northern zone); México state and Guerrero (the central zone); and Oaxaca and Quintana Roo (the southern zone), the report states that adolescents are recruited either voluntarily or forcibly.

In the former case, a young person might be invited by a friend to join a gang to which he or she already belongs. Alternatively, youths might take it upon themselves to approach a criminal organization and ask to join its ranks.

Reinserta presents its study of the recruitment of youths by organized crime. — Reinserta presents its study of the recruitment of youths by organized crime on Wednesday morning in Mexico City.

In the latter case, teenagers are forced into a life of crime. Reinserta said voluntary recruitment is more common than forced recruitment in all three zones it studied.

The organization’s study identified four factors that can make minors more susceptible to recruitment: their family and psychological situation, their level of education, their socio-economic situation and their cultural background.

Young people whose family life is unstable, for example, or who have been abandoned or neglected by their family are more likely to join a criminal gang. Minors disinterested in their studies or who have already left school are also more likely to accept an offer to become a member of a criminal organization.

Boys, girls and adolescents are frequently recruited in urban and rural communities where violence is so common it is normalized, the report said. Cartels in the northern zone pay their underage members up to 35,000 pesos (US $1,700) a month, making a life of crime particularly attractive to young people who may lack life’s most basic necessities.

In the case of Eduardo (a pseudonym used by Reinserta to protect his identity), members of the Northeast Cartel recruited him at the age of 13 to work as a halcón (hawk), as a lookout is colloquially known. Two years later he was selling drugs on the streets and was in charge of other lookouts as the cartel’s chief hawk in the area he worked. Two months after becoming the jefe de halcones, Eduardo sought another promotion to become a sicario, or cartel hitman, Reinserta said.

Known as the Tropa del Infierno (Hell’s Army), the cartel unit to which he belonged provided weapons and combat training to young recruits – a heady experience for budding capos not long out of primary school.

Eduardo’s cartel experience came to an end after he was arrested on drug trafficking charges and sentenced to two years in a juvenile detention center in Coahuila. The youth, who spoke to Reinserta after serving nine months, said he wants to start a new life when he is released but is fearful of what might happen to him and his family if he doesn’t rejoin the Northeast Cartel.

“… I’m afraid that the cartel will look for me and if they find me I don’t know what I’ll do. … If they find you you can’t tell them, ‘I don’t want to do it anymore,’ you have to join because [if you don’t] they’ll beat the shit out of you, at the very least. It’s more likely they’ll put a bullet in your head,” Eduardo said.

Presenting the report, Reinserta co-founder Saskia Niño de Rivera cited REDIM data that showed that 20,000 minors have been murdered and 7,000 have disappeared over the past 20 years. Many of those killed likely had links to or were members of criminal gangs.

President López Obrador asserts that his government’s social programs, especially the “Youths Building the Future” apprenticeship scheme, help steer young people away from a life of crime, but Reinserta believes there is a lack of public policies to combat organized crime’s recruitment of boys, girls and teenagers. The consequences of the policy vacuum, the organization said, include the abduction and even murder of minors.

Those who are arrested before they meet one of those fates face the possibility of being tortured while detained, Reinserta said, noting that the practice was detected in juvenile detention centers in all three zones where it conducted its study. Consequently, it is not just criminal groups that violate minor’s human rights but also the authorities, the organization said.

With reports from Milenio and EFE

Replica of mystery statue of indigenous woman to replace Christopher Columbus

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MND Staff

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October 13, 2021

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The pre-Hispanic sculpture that will be the model for Columbus' replacement.

A Mexico City statue of Christopher Columbus will be replaced with a replica of a pre-Hispanic sculpture of an unknown indigenous woman that was discovered in a Veracruz field in January.

The Columbus statue was removed from its plinth on Mexico City’s Reforma Avenue in October 2020, purportedly for cleaning, amid threats it would be knocked down. It was later announced it would be relocated to a new home in Parque América, a park in the affluent Polanco district.

The new effigy, a replica of “The Young Woman of Amajac,” named after the village where she was found buried in the Huasteca region of Veracruz, will be as much as three times the size of the two-meter original, which is being displayed in Mexico City’s Museum of Anthropology.

The statue dates from the late postclassical period, between 1450 and 1521. Its presence will differ markedly in style to neo-classical statues of indigenous people which have previously featured on Reforma Avenue, the Associated Press reported. “The Young Woman of Amajac” will stand on Columbus’ original base, which is of that neo-classical European style.

Speaking about the mystery of who the the young woman of Amajac represented, a field inspection officer at the National Institute of History and Anthropology (INAH) said she was more likely to have been a political figure than an ancient goddess of fertility, as was earlier speculated.

“Contrary to what one might think, it does not represent a goddess but a ruler …” said María Eugenia Maldonado. “We know these characters were representing ruling people or people of the hierarchy with political rank including women. So, in that sense, I think it’s the representation of a young woman of high-ranking character.”

Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum announced in September that a statue of an Olmec woman would replace the Columbus sculpture. The sculptor chosen to create the effigy, Pedro Reyes, had already named his would-be design Tlalli, meaning Earth, world or land in Náhuatl. It is unclear if Reyes is still involved in the process, or if Tlalli will come to be.

The decision to replace the Columbus statue has caused controversy. A petition on change.org to return the explorer’s likeness to his plinth has gained over 33,000 signatures.

However, INAH director Diego Prieto Hernández said its relocation was an attempt to protect the effigy. “This was based, not on any ideological judgement of the (Columbus) character … if it had been left in place, it would have been the target of threats and protests,” he said.

With reports from AP and Milenio

US to reopen borders to nonessential traffic to fully vaccinated travelers

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MND Staff

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October 13, 2021

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After a 19-month closure, the United States is set to reopen its land borders for nonessential travel from Mexico and Canada to fully vaccinated travelers in early November.

Vehicle, rail and ferry travel between the U.S. and Canada and Mexico has been largely restricted to essential travel since March 2020 in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic. Those restrictions have remained in place ever since, renewed on a monthly basis, despite growing pressure from the Mexican and Canadian governments.

The move to facilitate cross border travel aligns with a September 20 announcement that air travel from 33 countries will open up in November for the fully vaccinated. In contrast to air travel, no testing will be required to enter the U.S. by land or sea, provided travelers meet the vaccination requirement. By mid-January, even essential travelers seeking to enter the U.S. by land or sea, such as truck drivers, will need to be fully vaccinated.

The U.S. will accept travelers who have been vaccinated with any of the vaccines approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization, according to officials, meaning Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, Sinopharm and Sinovac would all be recognized, while Sputnik and CanSino would not. However, the newspaper Reforma reported that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still hasn’t made a final decision on the matter.

If the Russian Sputnik and Chinese CanSino vaccines remain unrecognized some 4 million Mexicans would be unable to enter the U.S. Mexico has received 8.4 million doses of the former (a two-dose vaccine) and 100,000 of the latter (one-dose).

The move toward restoring travel comes as COVID-19 cases in the U.S. have dropped to about 85,000 per day, the lowest level since July, following a spike from the more transmissible delta variant of the virus. Per capita case rates in Canada and Mexico have been been lower in the two countries than the U.S. throughout the pandemic, which heightened frustrations about the U.S. restrictions on travel.

“These new vaccination requirements deploy the best tool we have in our arsenal to keep people safe and prevent the spread of COVID-19 and will create a consistent, stringent protocol for all foreign nationals traveling into the United States whether by land or air,” a senior U.S. administration official said.

U.S. Democrat Chuck Schumer said the move would bring relief to communities on the country’s borders. “Since the beginning of the pandemic, members of our shared cross-border community have felt the pain and economic hardship of the land border closures. That pain is about to end,” he said.

However, despite the liberalization of U.S. border policy, officials cautioned that illegal entrants would still be expelled under so-called Title 42 authority first invoked by former President Donald Trump. Title 42 has been used to expel migrants on the grounds of a public health emergency before they can apply for asylum.

One U.S official said it was continuing the policy because cramped conditions in border patrol facilities pose a COVID-19 threat. It is not clear if proof of vaccination against COVID-19 will be accepted as evidence in migrants’ favor, given their lower risk of transmission.

With reports from AP, Reforma and CNN

Tabasco refinery work stoppage among strikes in 5 states

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MND Staff

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October 13, 2021

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Striking workers at the Dos Bocas refinery on Tuesday.

Laborers at the construction site of the new Pemex refinery on the Tabasco coast were among workers in at least five states who walked off the job on Tuesday.

Some 5,000 workers employed by the construction company ICA Fluor downed tools at the Dos Bocas refinery site to protest pay and working conditions.

There was a confrontation Wednesday morning when workers attempted to enter the refinery site for their shift. They claim that one of their number was shot and killed but there has been no official report on the incident, said the newspaper Reforma, which published a video showing police firing tear gas at the workers.

Tuesday’s protest was over an extension of their working hours without additional remuneration. They also claim they have faced threats of dismissal if they don’t pay moches – cuts or kickbacks – to a union leader installed by ICA.

Reforma reported that the workers abandoned the construction site at 9:00 a.m. Tuesday after making their dissatisfaction known by yelling and throwing stones at machinery. Marines and police subsequently secured the area where the ICA laborers were working.

The refinery, currently under construction in the municipality of Paraíso, is one of the signature infrastructure projects of the federal government. The US $8 billion project, which President López Obrador says will help Mexico achieve self-sufficiency for gasoline, is slated for completion in 2023.

Gas distributors are also on strike in Mexico City, where they continue to block roads to protest the federal government’s refusal to meet their demand to raise gas prices by 1 peso per kilo. The disgruntled distributors, who caused traffic chaos in the capital during the past two days, said they would stop working indefinitely if the government doesn’t change its position.

Some of their tankers were removed by tow-trucks, an action justified by Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, who said the capital can’t be held hostage by private interest groups.

In Guerrero, public health workers, police officers and state bureaucrats were among a group of people who protested in Chilpancingo on Tuesday to demand the payment of bonuses and other benefits, while Michoacán teachers took to the streets of Morelia to pressure the government to pay wages they say they are owed. Members of the CNTE teachers union also continue to block railroads in Michoacán.

Street vendors in Oaxaca city also protested on Tuesday to demand they be allowed to sell their wares in “tourist corridors” such as pedestrian streets, parks and squares. They directed their ire at the state government, holding their protest outside the Oaxaca Government Palace.

With reports from Reforma

Ministry of Health is moving its headquarters to Acapulco but workers are not keen

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MND Staff

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October 13, 2021

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The Acapulco building that will house the Ministry of Health.

The federal Health Ministry is relocating from Mexico City to Acapulco but the viability of the move is uncertain as only 20% of surveyed employees indicated they are prepared to move to the Pacific coast resort city.

Health Minister Jorge Alcocer said Tuesday that the ministry began the process of moving into new headquarters on Acapulco’s seafront boulevard, Avenida Costera, earlier this month.

He told President López Obrador’s regular news conference that high-ranking officials from several Health Ministry departments, including Prevention and Health Promotion and the National Institute of Health for Well-Being, or Insabi, have already made the move to the Guerrero coast.

“The relocation of personnel from other areas will be voluntary and progressive,” Alcocer said.

“… In this initial stage, [department] heads, general directors, area directors, trusted people of middle and senior managers and core staff who requested to voluntarily join this stage were transferred,” he said.

Health Minister Alcocer report on the Acapulco move at the president’s press conference on Tuesday.

All told, 100 people have made the move to Acapulco, Alcocer said, adding that 320 more, including employees of the health regulator Cofepris, will transfer to the city by January.

“By the end of the second half of 2022 about 1,200 workers will have been transferred,” he said, adding that they will receive assistance from the government to find housing, access health care and enroll children in schools.

“According to the voluntary survey we conducted, … 944 of 4,600 participants, 20.5% in other words, responded in the affirmative to the change of residence. Workers who don’t want to or can’t move … will have the opportunity to request a change of assignment,” Alcocer said.

He said that some workers may opt for voluntary redundancy or early retirement rather than make the move. The minister also said the Health Ministry is working on a plan with the Culture Ministry to convert its Mexico City headquarters, located in the inner city neighborhood of Juárez, into a health museum.

The newspaper Reforma reported that some Health Ministry workers declined the offer to move to Acapulco because they have mortgages in Mexico City or are applying for home loans in the capital. One employee said the majority of unionized workers wouldn’t be transferring.

“They can’t dismiss us,” said another employee, who explained that workers who don’t want to go to Acapulco expect to be transferred to a hospital or Health Ministry offices in another location.

“We know that we have to enter a different area in a few months. They tell us that the building [the ministry’s Mexico City headquarters] has to be vacated in December because it’s going to become … a museum,” the worker said.

“There are people who are paying off houses [in Mexico City],” the employee said, explaining why a shift to the coast was not an attractive option for some workers. “Your life and family are here, everything happened suddenly.”

Before he took office in late 2018, López Obrador announced a plan to decentralize the federal government by moving numerous departments to different cities across the country. However, the plan has faced opposition from both employees and the business sector, and little progress has been made.

The Mexican Employers Federation warned in September 2018 that decentralization would be one of the costliest projects ever undertaken in the history of public administration in Mexico, while employees of departments such as the Culture Ministry and the Environment Ministry have made it clear they don’t want to leave the capital.

The Health Ministry is just the second ministry to relocate after the Energy Ministry, which is now based in Villahermosa, Tabasco.

Among the other ministries the government intends to relocate are Wellbeing to Oaxaca, Culture to Tlaxcala, Education to Puebla, Economy to Monterrey and Public Administration to Querétaro.

With reports from Reforma and El Financiero

Candidate for mayor who ran in place of her slain mother takes office in Guanajuato

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MND Staff

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October 12, 2021

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Moreleon mayor Alma Denisse Sánchez Barragán — Alma Sánchez Barragán takes office in Moreléon, Guanajuato. Her mother, a Citizens Movement candidate for the post, was killed by gunmen in May.

The mayor of Moroleón, Guanajuato, took office this week, when she spoke earnestly about replacing her mother, a Citizens’ Movement candidate killed during the campaign for the June 6 elections.

Alma Rosa Barragán Santiago was murdered on May 25 during a campaign event in that municipality, located in the south of the state on the border with Michoacán.

According to witnesses, armed men arrived at the event and opened fire at the candidate. Two other people were wounded, the newspaper Milenio reported.

Alma Denisse Sánchez Barragán, her daughter, assumed the candidacy and won the contest. She said she felt conflicting emotions at her swearing-in ceremony.

“For me, being here today is something beautiful but at the same time it is very painful … Today I tell you with all my heart, today this is no longer just a town … today we are all Moroleón, a family,” she said.

“We can address pain in a good way, in a strong way, by uniting to keep moving forward,” she added.

The electoral season leading up to municipal, state and federal elections on June 6 was the most violent on record, according to a report by risk analysis firm Etellekt, which tracks election campaign violence. It showed that politicians and candidates were murdered in more than 20 states in the lead-up to the elections.

Guanajuato is never far from the discussion of violence. It tops the list as the worst state for homicides in terms of raw numbers.

President López Obrador has previously placed the blame squarely on state authorities, particularly state Attorney General Carlos Zamarripa.

“I urge the governor to do something … we don’t have support,” he said on August 30. “The attorney general has been there a long time, and there are no results.”

With reports from El Universal

Government reaches accord on activating Zapotillo dam in Jalisco

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MND Staff

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October 12, 2021

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The Zapotillo dam in Jalisco, halted by injunctions.

The federal government has reached an agreement with residents of two Jalisco municipalities that will allow the activation of a dam that has long been opposed by locals.

President López Obrador met on Sunday with residents of Temacapulín, Palmarejo and Acasico to discuss the possibility of putting the El Zapotillo dam into operation.

The first two communities are located in the northeastern municipality of Cañadas de Obregón, while Acasico is in the neighboring municipality of Mexticacán.

Residents have opposed the dam since former president Vicente Fox announced the project in 2005 because its operation would likely cause frequent flooding in the three towns, making them uninhabitable. Construction began in 2011 but the project was never completed due to community opposition and the legal action they took.

To mitigate the flooding risk, López Obrador in August proposed the operation of the dam at a reduced capacity. The president returned to Temacapulín on Sunday, where he also proposed the construction of a tunnel that will funnel water away from the towns to ensure they are not flooded in the case of heavy rain.

The residents consequently agreed to the activation of the dam – which will mainly supply water to the metropolitan area of Guadalajara – as long as its capacity doesn’t exceed the 42-meter mark, and as long as a range of other conditions, including the repair of homes damaged by construction of the dam, are met.

The National Water Commission (Conagua) had proposed the operation of El Zapotillo at a capacity of up to 80 meters. But Conagua chief Germán Martínez accepted the new limit and said the commission would review the technical details of the project with a view to putting the dam into operation.

“There is now a decision that the three towns won’t be flooded,” said López Obrador, who was accompanied at the meeting by Jalisco Governor Enrique Alfaro. “I believe that is progress … If [additional] budget is needed I can guarantee it,” he said

López Obrador said he would return to the region in a month to inaugurate the complementary projects required to complete the dam and ensure it can operate without flooding the three communities.

With reports from Milenio and Animal Político

Canada-Mexico business group warns of dire consequences of electricity reform

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MND Staff

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October 12, 2021

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CFE workers — Cancham México says the proposed reform's cancellation of electricity permits would hinder the ability of private electricity companies to generate power. VG Foto/Shutterstock

A business group that represents Canadian companies in Mexico has warned that President López Obrador’s proposed electricity reform will have “dire consequences” if approved by Congress.

The president sent a bill to Congress on October 1 that seeks to change the constitution to guarantee 54% electricity market participation for the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) – an increase of 16% compared to the share it says it currently holds – and get rid of two independent regulators: the National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH) and the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE).

López Obrador subsequently said the federal government will attempt to convince all political parties to support its plan to overhaul the energy sector, as the ruling Morena party doesn’t have the two-thirds majority required to get constitutional changes through Congress.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Mexico — Cancham México — rejected the president’s proposal, asserting that if approved it would have “very dire direct consequences for the country and destroy investments of Canadian companies in the electricity sector and other areas of the economy.”

It also said that the bill’s approval would violate international free trade agreements, in particular the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which replaced NAFTA last year.

AMLO — President Lopez Obrador wants to change the constitution to guarantee the Federal Electricity Commission 54% electricity market participation.

Cancham México said that a return to the “monopoly model” that existed before the previous government opened up the energy sector would “affect electricity service and eliminate supply options for consumers.”

It also said that the cancellation of electricity permits would hinder the capacity of private electricity companies, including Canadian ones, to generate power. Their investments would be destroyed as a result, it added.

“The lack of electricity delivery to the system by private companies will leave a large percentage of the industrial sector without electricity service, seriously affecting their activities,” Cancham México said.

“The disappearance of the CRE and the CNH, and the reincorporation of CENACE [the National Energy Control Center] into the CFE, will result in unfair regulation that will affect free competition … [and thus] increase inefficiencies in the electricity market and the supply of fuels. Free competition between different public sector and private sector companies is necessary for energy security and the country’s competitiveness.”

Cancham said the nations of North America have made great efforts over many years to integrate the region, but López Obrador’s proposal “represents a setback in the face of said efforts.”

“… Amid a process of economic reactivation, in which Canadian companies with investments in Mexico are making efforts to continue contributing to the development of the country, it is with surprise and concern that we see the consequences that this constitutional reform proposal would have,” the business group said, warning that it could undermine “the climate of confidence and certainty needed for economic recovery.”

CFE director Manuel Bartlett says that private companies use abusive business practices and are only interested in profits.

“If the initiative is approved in the terms in which it has been presented, it will have dire, deeply regrettable and certainly irreversible consequences” over many years, Cancham México said, citing damage to the environment as one.

“The best way to strengthen the energy sector in Mexico is through growing collaboration between the public and private sectors. The investment of private companies – today and in the future – will be vital to supply electricity to Mexicans and the businesses that stimulate the economy of this country,” it said, adding that such companies spur social development, offer lower rates and generate electricity in more environmentally friendly and sustainable ways.

But CFE director Manuel Bartlett has a very different opinion of private companies that operate in Mexico’s electricity market.

In a meeting with CFE executives, Bartlett said private companies engage in abusive business practices and are only interested in profits. He compared their operation in the market to a robbery.

“What the CFE, the Mexican electricity sector, is going through is a heist. There is not an honest system of competition, … the Federal Economic Competition Commission … only goes after us; it says we’re a monopoly, but it doesn’t pursue the private monopolies,” he said, according to a CFE press release issued Monday.

Bartlett railed against the previous government’s energy reform – which opened up the sector to private and foreign companies – and directed the CFE executives to defend López Obrador’s proposal to partially reverse it.

“Go out and disseminate the electricity reform, defend the CFE from the campaign that has been launched against it. … It’s our responsibility to defend [the company],” he said.

“It’s a lie that [electricity produced] by the CFE is expensive and contaminating, … that we’re going to become a monopoly. We’re simply going to change the rules of the market and rescue the company,” Bartlett said.

For its part, the Business Coordinating Council (CCE) charged that the CFE chief and Energy Minister Rocío Nahle have misrepresented private energy companies that operate in the Mexican market.

“They have every right to present ideas and arguments, but not to describe the legal activities of investors as theft of the nation,” said the CCE, which represents 12 business groups.

The Morena party coordinator of the lower house of Congress confidently predicted this week that the reform could be approved between mid-November and mid-December.

Mexico News Daily

More self-defense forces appear in Chiapas; 5 have formed since July

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MND Staff

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October 12, 2021

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Indigenous Tzotziles in Chenalhó announce their new self-defense force.

At least five new self-defense forces have sprung up in Chiapas since July 7 in areas east of Tuxtla Gutiérrez.

The most recent group announced its presence in a video uploaded to social media featuring camouflaged indigenous Tzotziles from Santa Martha Chenalhó wearing balaclavas.

The group said it formed to curb the violence over a land dispute with the nearby communty of Aldama which has run for 60 years and has left nearly 20 people dead.

Other forces are more explicitly political in their goals. A group formed in October in Altamirano aims to remove former mayor Roberto Pinto Kanter and his wife, mayor-elect Gabriela Roque Tiapcamú, from power.

In a video similar in design to the first, they stated their accusations: “… we have seen how the rich protect themselves among the rich, how politicians protect themselves among politicians, whatever political stripe they are, they want to deceive us into believing that they have changed their political stripes and are new. What never changes is their indifference towards us, the Tzetal and Tojolabal Indians,” a spokesperson said.

“Here the person that wins an election is the one with the most money,” he added.

Another group called The Machete, which announced its aims on July 7, formed in opposition to Pantelhó Mayor Raquel Trujillo, who it accuses of having links to organized crime. Another group called People of the Forest popped up on September 29 to support The Machete.

A fifth group is called the Armed Force of Simojovel. It demands that mayor-elect Humberto Martínez respect indigenous communities, and end crime and the theft of public resources.

The sparsely populated, rural state is politically fragmented and complex. Aside from self-defense forces the largely indigenous militant Zapatistas (EZLN) control substantial swaths of land, making the authority of the state’s elected politicians questionable.

The EZLN rose in opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 and demanded that the autonomy of indigenous communities be recognized in the constitution.

With reports from Milenio

Canceled last year by COVID, Mexico City’s Day of the Dead parade is back

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MND Staff

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October 12, 2021

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The catrinas are preparing for the Day of the Dead in Mexico City.

Mexico City’s International Day of the Dead parade will return this year in all its splendor and color after being forced online in 2020.

The festival is one of Mexico’s most important, and is almost universally celebrated by indigenous communities. It is marked by smells of copal, an abundance of marigolds, elaborate altars and cemeteries lit up with candles. Mexico City first hosted a parade to coincide with the holiday in 2016, which was well received by the public.

The parade will start at midday on October 31 and travel 8.7 kilometers from the city’s main zócalo to Campo Marte, a military complex near the Auditorio Metro station. More than 1,000 volunteers will participate, including 150 musicians and 350 dancers and acrobats. The parade will be divided into four themes: Tenochtitlán, Mexico City today, Magic and Tradition, and Celebrating Life.

Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said the parade would be dedicated to victims of the pandemic. “The city is going to celebrate its Day of the Dead festival with sanitary protections. The festivities have two characteristics: one is very sad — what we have lived through recently in our country … which is that thousands of people have died from COVID-19, so the event is dedicated to all those people … so we can pay tribute,” she said.

She explained that 98% of the city’s adult population had received at least a single dose of COVID-19 vaccine, allowing the event to resume, and that the festivities would provide an important economic boost.

Mexico City Tourism Minister Paola Félix said the participants have rehearsed in groups of no more than 40 people as a health measure. There will be sanitary checkpoints and random COVID tests for participants during the event, which attracted some 2.6 million people in 2019.

Meanwhile, the Alfeñique festival in Toluca, México state, has also been given the go-ahead. Eighty-one artisans will convene in the city center from October 15-November 2 to sell chocolate and traditional sugar skulls for Day of the Dead altars.

With reports from Milenio and El Sol de Toluca