The president and other officials inaugurate the Grandeur of Mexico exhibition on Monday.
President López Obrador announced the creation of a special team dedicated to recovering stolen archaeological artifacts and historic documents at his morning news conference Monday. He said the order had been made to the National Guard, the security body he established in 2019.
López Obrador said inspiration for the idea had come from Italy, which had recovered and sent artifacts to Mexico for the Grandeur of Mexico exhibition. “What an example: Italy has a special body of carabinieri to recover stolen archaeological pieces. Imagine if all countries had the same organization dedicated to the recovery of stolen pieces that belong to the cultural and artistic heritage of the different countries of the world … We are going to follow the example of Italy, I have given the instruction for the National Guard to constitute a special team for the purpose,” he said.
Later in the conference, the head of the Italian carabinieri department which recovers artifacts, Brigadier General Roberto Riccardi, was decorated with the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, the highest order that can be awarded to a foreigner.
Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard explained the recognition. “Brigadier General Roberto Riccardi has exercised a very active leadership in support of the safeguarding and return of heritage pieces illicitly stolen from our nation. An example of this is the recent recovery of 17 archaeological pieces that were intended to be auctioned in Italy …. and the restitution of 74 archaeological pieces … since 2013,” he said.
Riccardi took the opportunity to argue for the cultural value of historic artifacts. “We believe in what we do, deeply. Every time we recover an artifact of historical or artistic value, it is a piece of identity, of collective memory … I wish Mexico a brighter future, if possible, than its glorious past,” he said.
The president also showed his appreciation to the governments of the United States, France and the Vatican for lending and returning artifacts to Mexico. “The French government was the government that lent us the most pieces for the exhibition. A special thanks to the Vatican, to Pope Francis, who gave us documents and works, which had never happened in history,” he said.
The governments of Netherlands, Germany and Sweden were also accredited by the president.
The Grandeur of Mexico exhibition will display 1,525 pieces for five months in Mexico City at the National Museum of Anthropology and at the Education Ministry’s headquarters.
In the National Museum of Anthropology the pieces are displayed by theme, and divided into territory, spirituality, the person, symbolism and the paths to freedom. The SEP exhibition presents pieces along geographical lines: the southeast and the Mayan region, the highlands region and northern Mexico.
UNAM researcher Rodrigo Medellín, a world-renowned expert on bats, is the subject of a PBS Nature documentary about him, "The Bat Man of Mexico."
Although it weighs less than an ounce, the lesser long-nosed bat has a big impact in Mexico: it pollinates the agave plant that humans use to make tequila, earning it the nickname of the “tequila bat.”
For decades, UNAM ecologist Rodrigo Medellín has been working to preserve this tiny but vital species. Now his efforts are being recognized in an episode of the PBS series Nature.
“The Bat Man of Mexico” is narrated by celebrated British natural historian Sir David Attenborough and produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation. It follows Medellín’s determined campaign to save the lesser long-nosed bat, in part by raising awareness of its importance to the tequila industry.
“The lesser long-nosed bat and the agave have an intimate connection,” Medellín said in a phone interview. “One depends on the other for their survival and sexual reproduction.”
As he explains, an agave plant reproduces just once in its life, via a flower created by sugar that has accumulated in the plant. Bats feed on nectar from the flower. In doing so, they help agave plants exchange genes with each other.
“The lesser long-nosed bat and the agave have an intimate connection,” says Medellín. “One depends on the other for their survival and sexual reproduction.”
However, all of this was jeopardized toward the end of the 20th century by declining bat populations. In the 1990s, the bat was placed on the endangered species list in both Mexico and the United States and was at risk of going extinct.
“Since then,” Medellín said, “I started working on a recovery plan — what needed to happen for the species to recover.”
Over the past two decades, in the 13 largest-known colonies of the bats in Mexico, “all of the roosts have become stable or are growing,” Medellín said. “There’s evidence of growing new colonies we had not known about.”
In the documentary, he tracks the bats’ numbers by following their three-million-strong migration across Mexico, from the caves of Calakmul in the south to the Sonoran Desert to the north. Along the way, he braves a hurricane, snakes and swarming cockroaches. The documentary shows the bats on the move — in what it calls “a living tornado” that is meant to discourage predators — as well as groundbreaking footage of a live birth.
“These bats are the sweetest bats you could possibly think of,” Medellín said. However, he noted, “Like any wild animal that you hunt, a lizard or a snake or a rat … they will try to bite you if they want to defend [themselves] or perceive you as a predator.”
A fascination with bats dates back to his childhood. As shown in the documentary, the young Medellín began an up-close study of a species known for its bite, the vampire bat. Since becoming a scientist, he’s done conservation work with many other animals, including jaguars, bears and bighorn sheep.
Medellín doing what he loves.
His efforts with the lesser long-nosed bat earned worldwide recognition with the Whitley Gold Award in 2012. The award is presented annually by the British-based Whitley Fund for Nature. Medellín remembers the ceremony, when he received the prize from England’s Princess Anne and got to meet Attenborough, who did narrations for videos about the honorees.
“It was one-on-one, David Attenborough and myself,” recalled Medellín, who compared himself to a Justin Bieber fan upon meeting his longtime hero and role model. “We talked about everything — about life, bats, Mexico, everything.”
Medellín’s enthusiasm for the bats resonated with Attenborough, who not only pledged to do whatever he could to make a documentary about Medellín but made good on his promise a day later: five members of the BBC approached Medellín at a reception at the House of Lords to say that a documentary filmmaking crew had been assigned to him.
In 2013, the crew came to Mexico for three to four months of filming.
“I have nothing more than praise for the work of the BBC,” Medellín said. “They were extremely respectful of the bats, myself and the environment.”
Attenborough gave the species its memorable nickname of the “tequila bat.” The crew filmed it inside the caves of Calakmul, using infrared light so the bats would not see any light around.
Rodrigo Medellin, left, meeting David Attenborough at the Whitley Fund for Nature’s award ceremony, at which Medellin won the Whitley Gold Award.
The use of light came into play in a different way when Medellín was having a hard time tracking the bats. He came up with an unorthodox solution. Upon catching some bats, he would sprinkle them with UV dust. They would lick it and ingest it, and it would make their glowing guano easy to spot. According to the program, the dust is harmless to the bats.
A moving moment in the documentary shows the successful realization of Medellín’s goal: the lesser long-nosed bat was taken off the endangered species list in Mexico in 2013, then delisted in the U.S. four years later.
As Medellín has tracked the bats across Mexico, he has sought to raise awareness about their importance. In the past, he said, people wrongly associated them with vampire bats and attacked the caves where they reproduced.
“Out of fun, they would throw rocks at bats, dynamite them, gas them, trying to get rid of vampire bats,” he said.
He does advocacy work with local communities — including landowners near the 13 principal caves where the bats breed, as well as elementary schoolchildren in these areas. Medellín praises the role of women in the community as well for imparting his message to their families and neighbors: “It’s an incredible opportunity for me to understand socially how information travels within a society,” he said.
He’s also urging the tequila industry to counter a trend of what he describes as cloning agave shoots to maximize alcohol production, instead of relying on bats for pollination. He questions whether cloned plants would “adapt to the conditions of climate change, agricultural pests, any other situation.”
in 2013, Medellín convinced some of Mexico’s most prominent tequila makers to allow 5% of their agave plants to flower. In return, the resulting tequila was allowed to bear a UNAM ‘bat friendly” label.
In 2013, Medellín joined forces with some of the most prominent members of the tequila industry [to] “basically convince [them] that they should allow 5% of their plants to flower,” with the resulting tequila being labeled as bat-friendly, he said.
In Mexico, he said, bats have avoided a more recent threat — stigmatization due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When this news [of COVID-19] started to come out in February and March of 2020, in many countries in the world there was a war on bats,” Medellin said. “It didn’t happen in Mexico. There was not a single instance of people killing bats because of fear of the coronavirus … People in Mexico already know bats are our friends.”
According to Medellín, there is “no evidence whatsoever that bats gave us COVID.”
And in general, he said, bats “do nothing — nothing — to deserve the bad reputation they have.”
The documentary shows him doing all he can to defend the reputation of the lesser long-nosed bat.
Medellín on the Pinacate Biosphere Reserve in the Sonoran Desert during filming.
“The people [living] behind all the caves nearby, the community living nearby, they never knew that [for] pulque, agave, tequila, these [bats] are the heroes,” he said. “I would give them pictures, evidence, proof. They immediately became bat allies.”
The federal Health Ministry reported 3,007 new cases and 226 additional COVID-19 deaths on Monday, lifting Mexico’s accumulated tallies to 3.63 million and 275,676, respectively.
There are 58,311 estimated active cases, a 13% decline compared to Friday. On a per capita basis, Tabasco has the highest number of active cases with just over 160 per 100,000 people. Colima ranks second with a rate just over 140 followed by Mexico City, where there are about 120 active cases per 100,000 people. No other state has a rate above 100.
Almost 99.2 million vaccine doses have been administered in Mexico, according to the most recent data. The Health Ministry said Sunday that 71% of the adult population has had at least one shot.
Nine in 10 adults in Mexico City and Querétaro have been vaccinated while 18 states have vaccination rates above the national average.
The 12 states with rates below the 71% average are Campeche, Chiapas, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Jalisco, México state, Michoacán, Oaxaca, Puebla, Tabasco, Tlaxcala and Veracruz.
There are currently 7,630 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, according to federal data, and 114 hospitals have capacity levels of 70% or higher in their general care COVID wards.
At 52%, Puebla has the highest occupancy rate for general care hospital beds followed by Nuevo León and Michoacán with rates of 49% and 47%, respectively. Morelos ranks first for beds with ventilators with 48% taken followed by Aguascalientes and Tabasco with rates of 44% and 41%, respectively.
Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said recently that more than 95% of hospitalized COVID patients haven’t been vaccinated.
The president meets with Yaqui representatives last August in Sonora.
The federal government will build a 2.16-billion-peso (US $107.7 million) aqueduct to supply uncontaminated water to 50 Yaqui communities in Sonora.
According to a National Water Commission (Conagua) planning document seen by the newspaper Milenio, the government will commence construction in January 2022 and complete the project two years later.
Almost 812 million pesos will be spent on construction of the aqueduct itself, while the remainder of the money will go to the construction of two pumping stations, a water-treatment plant and other complementary infrastructure.
The objective is to deliver water that is free of arsenic, lead, magnesium, sodium and other contaminants to approximately 40,000 residents of Yaqui communities in the municipalities of Guaymas, Empalme, Cajeme, Bácum and San Ignacio Río Muerto.
During a visit to Guaymas just over a year ago, President López Obrador pledged to deliver reliable water services to Yaqui communities whose residents have protested to demand that the government compensate them for ceding land for a range of infrastructure projects and fulfill social development commitments. Milenio suggested that he will formally announce the aqueduct project during another visit to Yaqui communities on Tuesday.
Studies show that water currently supplied to Yaqui towns is contaminated by high levels of arsenic, which is believed to cause diabetes and increases the risk of developing certain types of cancer. Diabetes is the most common chronic disease across the 50 Yaqui communities the aqueduct will serve, according to the University of Sonora.
Just over 18% of residents suffer from diabetes, one study shows, whereas the prevalence is below 1% in nearby Tepehuán communities.
The Conagua planning document says the main benefit of the aqueduct project will be the reduction of illnesses among residents. It also notes that access to clean water in sufficient quantities is a human right.
More than 6,000 residents across 24 Yaqui communities in Sonora currently don’t have access to piped water, according to Conagua, a situation that forces them to obtain it from alternative sources.
Thousands of Haitian migrants have endured hellish journeys from South America to reach Mexico and the U.S., only to face possible deportation, lack of access to visas and an uncertain future.
More than 14,000 migrants, many from Haiti, ended up the camp at Del Rio, Texas, regularly crossing back into Mexico to buy food. Pictures of U.S. border patrol agents on horseback confronting migrants prompted outrage, including U.S. President Joe Biden, who called them “horrible” and “beyond embarrassing.”
The sudden focus on a long-simmering crisis has turned into a political crisis for the Biden administration, which has come under fire both from Democrats, who have denounced harsh treatment of the migrants, and Republicans who say White House policies have encouraged people to make the difficult journey.
A debate within the administration over how to address the crisis spilled out into the open last week, as Daniel Foote, the U.S. special envoy to Haiti, resigned over what he described as “inhumane” treatment of Haitians. That drew a public rebuke from the state department, which said Foote had mischaracterized the circumstances of his resignation.
As more migrants turn up at the southern U.S. border, activists say it has become harder to claim asylum. Rules introduced during the pandemic allow agents to immediately return those who cross the border. The U.S. government said on Friday that all the migrants had been cleared from the camp, with 2,000 deported to Haiti.
Dana Graber Ladek, head of the UN’s International Organization for Migration mission in Mexico, said the expulsion of Haitians was particularly concerning, since many had left their home country years ago. They may have no family ties left and face political instability, insecurity and a lack of opportunity, she said.
“We need to understand the nature of this migration,” she told the Financial Times. “These are individuals who are simply seeking a better life for themselves and for their children.”
In the years after a devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti that killed more than 200,000 people, tens of thousands of people left the country and scattered across South America, often in Chile and Brazil.
After work opportunities dried up, many headed for Mexico in recent months, making a perilous trip across borders. The migrants travel first up to northern Colombia, where there are some 19,000 Haitians awaiting a boat crossing that would leave them close to Panama.
The presidents of Costa Rica, Panama and Dominican Republic expressed deep concern over the crisis in Haiti and its impact on the region in a letter on Wednesday, asking the U.S., UN and EU for help finding structural solutions.
As more migrants began arriving in August, the Colombian and Panamanian foreign ministries agreed that just 500 migrants would be allowed to cross each day, using two local boat services. The beach at Necoclí, Colombia, which has become a bottleneck for the migrants, is packed with tents.
“We’re worried that we’re going to have a health crisis on our hands, and we won’t have the capacity to respond,” said Necoclí Mayor Jorge Tobón.
From there, migrants take on the most perilous part of the trip: a multi-day trek across Panama’s Darién Gap, a jungle that is home to gangs, treacherous rivers and poisonous snakes and without roads or mobile phone reception.
“It was tragic,” said Joseph, who left Haiti in 2015 and recently traveled north from Chile, of the Darién. “There are things that one doesn’t want to see twice … seeing dead people, sleeping in unsafe places.”
Even if migrants cross Central America, they face immigration crackdowns in Mexico, which has stepped up deportations and deployed the National Guard to try to contain migrants.
Three times more Haitians have requested refugee status in Mexico this year than in 2019 or 2020. Fewer than one-third of those whose cases have been resolved this year obtained refugee status, according to Comar, the Mexican state agency for helping refugees.
One Haitian migrant, Jean-Louis, tried to get a residency permit through Comar when he reached Tapachula, Chiapas, after a journey that took him across nine countries, where he saw fellow migrants drown and was robbed by gangs. It was denied, and he said he was appealing.
Despite that, he has no intention of returning to Haiti, having left in 2017. “The country is in a very complicated state, like Afghanistan,” the 42-year-old said of his home country. “I want to stay in Mexico … I don’t have any family in Haiti,” he said from Tapachula.
Yuriria Salvador, structural change co-ordinator at the Fray Matías de Córdova Human Rights Center in the same city, said the organization had seen a big increase in the number of Haitians seeking help. In Mexico, they experienced racism and lived in cramped housing with limited access to water, she said.
Despite expectations of a softer approach to migration, both the Mexican government of President López Obrador and Biden’s administration have maintained many of the same practices of their predecessors.
“There were a lot of expectations that there might be a much more humanistic vision,” Salvador said of Mexico’s government. “There wasn’t a change in policies either here or in the U.S.”
In his morning news conference Friday, López Obrador said he did not want Mexico to become a migrant camp. He said the U.S. should support development in Latin America and that the UN should intervene to help Haiti.
Joseph has been waiting six weeks for his interview in Tapachula for a residency permit from Comar. When he gets it, he doesn’t mind where he lives in Mexico, but he wishes it would go faster.
“The money we had to be able to eat is running out,” he said.
Ciudad Acuña resident Victoria Palomares and her family hand out cooked meals to Haitian migrants in the Braulio Fernández Ecological Park.
Haitian migrants who returned to Mexico after giving up on their quest to find asylum in the United States have received a helping hand from some residents of Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila.
More than 14,000 mainly Haitian migrants recently crossed the Rio Grande and gathered in a makeshift camp below the international bridge that connects Ciudad Acuña to Del Rio, Texas.
Some 2,000 were returned to Haiti on repatriation flights from the United States last week while many others remain in U.S. immigration facilities.
Some decided to return to Mexico to avoid likely deportation to Haiti, a country plagued by poverty, political turmoil and frequent natural disasters, including a devastating earthquake last month.
Hundreds of Haitians set up camp in a Ciudad Acuña park late last week after the camp on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande was cleared, while some found refuge in the homes of generous locals.
‘We want to give them things, not sell to them,’ Palomares said. She and her family set up a makeshift soup kitchen with their pickup truck.
Those in the Braulio Fernández Ecological Park, located on the southern banks of the river, received free food, water and clothes from altruistic acuñenses, as locals of the border city are called. One such person is Mayra Lorena Arredondo, who along with her six children and son-in-law prepared chicken sandwiches and rice for the Haitians and gave them apples, juice and bottles of water.
“We were motivated by the necessity they have now; it’s very sad that they’re coming in search of a new future but they’re closing the doors on many of them,” Arredondo told the newspaper El Universal.
“They have nothing to eat,” she said. “While we can help them with something, we’ll be here supporting them.”
The 42-year-old mother said she wanted to instill the importance of charity and solidarity in her children and noted that they could someday find themselves in a situation in which they, too, required assistance.
“They [the migrants] need help. … If God allows me and blesses me, I will continue to come,” Arredondo said.
Victoria Alejandra Palomares and her family also took food to the Haitians camping out in the park.
Mensah Montant, a Togolese man who migrated to Mexico nine years ago, with his daughter, Rachel. He has been delivering food and medicine to Haitian families.
“I was moved by seeing the migrant children,” she said. “I wanted to come and give them something to eat. … We want to give them things, not sell to them. … We didn’t bring much.” Palomares then rattled off a long list that included rice, chicken, soup, Coca-Cola, bananas, popsicles, shoes and clothes.
“Poor things; it makes me sad seeing them like this. My husband works on farms, but we left everything to come here today.”
Virginia Salazar and her husband Mensah Montant, a Togolese man who arrived in Mexico as a migrant nine years ago, also came to the Haitians’ assistance.
The Associated Press reported that Salazar and Montant have delivered rice to one home where Haitians were staying, took medicine to another and were looking for a mattress for one family. All told, they have provided personal assistance to about a dozen Haitians.
Salazar, a cleaner, told AP that she came from a family of migrants, so she is aware of the challenges they face. “There’s my husband, and I have one sister who has documents and another who is illegal [in the United States],” she said. “ [Helping] comes naturally to me.”
Andrea García, a 24-year-old hairstylist, and her family have gone above and beyond in helping Haitians in Ciudad Acuña, providing accommodation in six houses they own. “They arrived at my house alone, with their babies … they said there was no place they could go,” García said, referring to one family she helped.
Migrants in Tapachula line up outside a shelter hoping for an available spot.
“Yes, I am worried, afraid because Mexican immigration agents are going into people’s houses and are not giving them a chance at the process” to apply for residency, she said. “But it is more sad than scary to see how they pray when they see an immigration van.”
Mexican immigration agents have told Haitians in Ciudad Acuña that they must return to Tapachula, Chiapas, to apply for asylum in Mexico. Some have been bused to the city, located more than 2,300 kilometers south.
However, most Haitians are reluctant to return to Tapachula because having already passed through the city, they know what to expect: a lack of work opportunities, overwhelmed migrant services and long wait times at the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance, which is responsible for processing asylum claims.
Many of the Haitians — a large number of whom previously spent time in South American countries such as Chile and Brazil — left Tapachula without Mexican papers because they had been stranded in the city for weeks or months and were unsure whether they would ever be issued documents that allowed them to travel legally through the country.
AP reported last week that Haitians in Mexico will soon be deported on repatriation flights from Tapachula and Monterrey, Nuevo León, while the National Immigration Institute said in a statement on Sunday that flights to Haiti from Tapachula and Villahermosa, Tabasco, would be offered starting next week to “those who voluntarily wish to return to their country.”
Migrants living in tents at an overflowing Reynosa refugee shelter.
In addition to Ciudad Acuña and Tapachula, another city overwhelmed with migrants is Reynosa, Tamaulipas. One shelter alone is currently hosting almost 1,200 Central American and Haitian migrants — a figure triple its capacity — with many sleeping in more than 200 tents set up on its grounds.
Amid the high demand for its services, the Casa Senda de Vida (Path of Life House) ran out of food and other provisions, prompting its management to appeal for help from citizens, social organizations and all three levels of government.
“We have 27 volunteer cooks who can do nothing because we have nothing to prepare,” director Héctor Silva told El Universal. “About 10 boxes of chicken are used here for a meal. We [also] use sacks of potatoes, vegetables, eggs, milk and cereal for the kids, but we don’t have any of that.”
A short time later, the shelter received a donation of cleaning supplies, hygiene products and medications, as well as chicken, rice, potatoes and broccoli, which were quickly cooked and served to the migrants. But with 1,200 hungry mouths to feed, plenty more supplies are required.
“We want to help … because there is a lot of necessity,” said Miguel Ortiz, a Reynosa resident who collected funds to put toward the purchase of food for the shelter.
“There are a lot of children here who are not to blame for the fact that their governments or countries can’t provide them with a good environment to live in.”
Los Angles Dodgers pitcher and Sinaloa native Julio Urías is close to being crowned the most successful Major League Baseball (MLB) pitcher of 2021, now on 19 wins after his team defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks on Sunday. “El Culichi,” as he is known by fans, would be the first Mexican to hold that record.
Urías, 25, has a three-win lead over Gerrit Cole of the New York Yankees and Adam Wainwright of the St. Louis Cardinals, both of whom are tied for second.
The southpaw was born in Culiacán, Sinaloa, and moved to the United States in his youth after being scouted and signed by the Dodgers on his 16th birthday.
He has only lost three games so far this season, making him one of the most effective pitchers in MLB. He is also one of the best pitchers in MLB when it comes to hitting.
Urías said that given the choice, he would opt for honors in the pitching department despite his fondness for batting. “Obviously I like hitting. I’ve always talked about how much I like hitting,” he said.
“We have a competition among ourselves and it’s something that’s very important to me. I was able to contribute, which is really great … reaching 20 wins [as a pitcher] would be a dream come true and something I’m really striving for,” he added.
The pitcher has one more series to hit the 20 mark when the Dodgers face the Milwaukee Brewers on October 2. Then the Dodgers will face the San Francisco Giants in the playoffs.
Another Mexican pitcher won more games in a season than Urías’ 19, but fell short of being the best pitcher that year. In 1986, Fernando Valenzuela from Etchohuaquila, Sonora, racked up 21 wins with the Dodgers, but was edged out by Roger Clemens of the Boston Red Sox, who ended the season with 24 wins.
Urías was one of two Mexican pitchers who helped the Dodgers win last year’s World Series. He and Víctor González pitched in the Dodgers’ 3-1 win over the Tampa Bay Rays in the final game of the series in Arlington, Texas.
Community guards on patrol in the Tierra Caliente.
An 18-year-old man presumed killed by Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) gunmen in Tepalcatepec, Michoacán, earlier this month took up arms to defend his family, according to his devastated mother.
Men believed to be CJNG sicarios carried out a lengthy offensive in the Tierra Caliente municipality in the middle of September, killing seven people and wounding three others.
Five men manning a checkpoint designed to keep criminals out of the community of La Estanzuela were murdered and decapitated before two other men also working as community guards were shot dead in the locality of Plaza Vieja.
One of the victims of the latter attack was Juan José López Cervantes, who recently graduated from middle school and planned to continue his studies at a technical school.
His body and that of the other victim have not been recovered because they are in an area controlled by the CJNG, the newspaper El Universal reported.
The mother of murdered young man said he wished to defend his family.
López’s mother told El Universal that her son had dreams of becoming a soldier or a nurse but was unable to commence his high school studies due to the pandemic. Not wanting to sit idle as Tepalcatepec came under attack, he decided to join the community resistance to the CJNG and swapped his textbooks for a gun, said Genoveva Cervantes Cortés.
Chelito, as López was affectionately known, didn’t want to see his family murdered, Cervantes said.
According to a community guard working alongside the young man, López, described by his friends as “very brave,” was first shot in the leg and later in the head as they came under attack by CJNG gunmen. Running for their own lives, the other comunitarios were unable to remove the bodies of their slain colleagues.
Cervantes said that armed attacks have become a daily occurrence in Tepalcatepec, one of several Tierra Caliente municipalities plagued by violence perpetrated by the CJNG and its local rival, the Cárteles Unidos.
“[There is] a lot of violence. You’re at home waiting for a bullet or bomb to fall on you. You can’t sleep because you don’t know what’s going to happen to you or if they’re going to kill your child,” she said before urging authorities to recover the body of her son.
The soldiers sit at the roadside, under guard by border patrol agents.
Fourteen Mexican soldiers were detained by U.S. officials for several hours early on Saturday after they entered U.S. territory at El Paso, Texas, across the border from Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua.
The soldiers, who crossed the bridge between the cities in two military vehicles, said they didn’t realize they had entered the United States.
The newspaper El Heraldo Chihuahua reported they were from southern Mexico and had only recently arrived at the northern border.
Border agents secured weapons and equipment for “safety and processing,” said U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), adding that Mexican military leadership was contacted and arrived shortly after.
Thirteen of the soldiers were processed without incident, but one was given a civil penalty after CBP officers discovered a small quantity of marijuana in his possession.
The soldiers appeared to have been handcuffed according to Reuters. Their vehicles and weapons were returned to them when they were released.
The border crossing was closed for about two hours due to the incident, a witness said.
One witness, who asked not to be named, described the tense moments when border officials stopped the soldiers. “The CBP yelled at the soldiers to put their hands up and drop their weapons immediately.”
Involuntary border crossings by Mexican military forces have occurred in the past, the newspaper El Universal reported, but usually in areas where the border is not clearly marked, rather than on international bridges.
One of the drones used for crimefighting in México state.
The use of drones to combat crime is proving to be a success in México state, where 109 of the devices are in operation.
The unmanned aerial vehicles have helped authorities detain thieves who target public transit users and pedestrians, locate missing people and track stolen vehicles, according to the deputy director of video surveillance at the C5 security center in Toluca.
Drones and other crimefighting technology such as security cameras have allowed authorities to identify and follow criminals as they escape from the places where they perpetrated their offenses, José Luis Amado Mauro told the newspaper El Universal.
“[The drones] have been very useful,” he said, explaining that they have carried out 8,736 flights of which at least 400 made a successful contribution to the fight against crime.
Amado said the drones are often used in hard-to-reach places such as gullies and ravines, adding that they have also been deployed in high-crime areas where carrying our patrols is risky for police.
The official said that México state authorities have used two different types of drones since early last year. One is the so-called “drone in a box” in which the aerial vehicle deploys from and returns to a self-contained landing box.
Amado said that 65% of the box drones are situated in high-crime areas that are part of the greater metropolitan area of Mexico City. There are three in Ecatepec, a municipality notorious for crime, and two in each of Naucalpan and Tlalnepantla. There are also two box drones in Toluca, the state capital.
Amado said the box drones were placed in areas where there are few security cameras. They are operated from the C5 security center, he explained.
The security official said that México state is one of the states with the highest number of crimefighting drones. He described the state, Mexico’s most populous, as a pioneer in their use.
Amado said authorities also used drones to assess a recent landslide at Cerro de Chiquihuite, a populous hill on the boundary between Tlalnepantla and Gustavo A. Madero, a Mexico City borough.
As a result of the use of drones, authorities were able to inform rescue workers about the conditions they faced, allowing them to work with greater precision and without risking their lives, he said.
