A screenshot from the video of the clandestine vaccine shot.
A nurse in Michoacán has been dismissed after a video revealed she had stolen Covid vaccine for her family.
The video, which showed an injection being given in a private home, was followed by a Messenger conversation in which the recipient of the vaccine, Ariz Sánchez, explained that her aunt, who worked in the health sector in Morelia, had taken it from her workplace.
The person with whom she was corresponding replied by pointing out it was a crime to which Sánchez replied, “Well yes, but everyone who works there takes [vaccine doses] for their families.”
Sánchez mentioned another friend was going to receive her second dose because her family worked in healthcare.
The state Ministry of Health issued a statement on Wednesday announcing that the nurse had been terminated. “We don’t tolerate actions such as this that put people’s health at risk and hurt the vaccination process.”
55% of workers at the Silao plant rejected the union contract.
General Motors workers at a pickup truck plant in Silao, Guanajuato, rejected their collective contract in a two-day voting process that concluded late on Wednesday. The result paves the way for the workers to oust one of Mexico’s largest labor organizations as their union.
The federal Labor Ministry (STPS) said in a statement that 5,876 GM workers cast a ballot and 3,214 of that number – just under 55% – rejected the collective bargaining agreement. Officials from the STPS, the National Electoral Institute and the United Nations’ International Labor Organization observed the counting of ballots.
Many workers who spoke out in support of voting against the agreement asserted that their current union didn’t fight hard enough for higher salaries at the Silao plant, where pickups sold at high profits in the United States are made.
As a result of the vote, the workers’ contract is nullified, the STPS said, “but the workers won’t lose any acquired rights and will maintain the same benefits and working conditions.”
The contract was negotiated by the Miguel Trujillo López union, which is part of the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) and represents about 30% of GM workers in Silao. Its rejection by a majority of workers opens the door for another union to negotiate a new labor agreement on the employees’ behalf. Ousting the CTM-affiliated union would be a “historic move,” the news agency Reuters reported.
The vote in Silao represented a first test of labor rules under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, a revamped trade pact that replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, just over a year ago. A range of measures designed to ensure fair and free workplace votes are enshrined in the USMCA.
This week’s vote came four months after GM workers in Silao participated in a vote that the STPS said was plagued by “serious irregularities,” including the destruction of some ballots and the union’s refusal to hand over documentation of the vote tally to independent labor inspectors.
That prompted the United States to file the first complaint under the USMCA’s labor enforcement mechanism. In response, the Labor Ministry said in May that a new vote must be held.
USMCA labor rules and a landmark Mexican labor reform that was considered crucial for the ratification of the three-way pact aim to abolish so-called “sweetheart contracts” between companies and business-friendly unions that represent their workers.
Many Mexican unions have long been accused of corruption and maintaining cosy relationships with companies that are detrimental to workers’ rights.
Admiral Ojeda: 'We have good judges but we also have problems.'
Almost three months after describing the judicial branch of government as an enemy of the state, navy chief José Rafael Ojeda offered a public apology for his remarks on Wednesday.
Yesterday he apologized for his comments at a criminal justice system workshop at which judges including Supreme Court Chief Justice Arturo Zaldívar were in attendance.
“… I want to make a public apology to those who deserve it because there are good judges and good attorney general’s offices, and there is good social justice,” the navy minister said.
“But we also have certain problems within this branch [of government],” he added.
Ojeda also said that the navy is committed to working with other Mexicans institutions, including the judiciary, to combat problems that the nation faces.
“We want to open the bridge of communication toward a multilateral dialogue that allows us to work in close collaboration [with other institutions],” he said.
“… We want to understand them but we also want them to understand us. … In addition to receiving this judicial system training, we want to be given the opportunity to allow you to understand our conduct in the military field, why it is necessary to maintain discipline, loyalty and duty, why we must be as we are,” Ojeda said.
For his part, Zaldívar asserted that the various institutions of the Mexican state are not at odds with each other but rather working together toward a common goal.
“The different authorities and institutions of the Mexican state are not opposed to each other. We have the same aim, we’re on the same side. We have different roles and responsibilities but not conflicting ones,” he said.
“… I have no doubt that [the] constructive dialogue and [mutual] trust that we have strengthened, not just at an institutional level but also at a personal one, will allow us to move toward a fairer and freer country, in peace and harmony,” the chief justice said.
“I thank Admiral Rafael Ojeda for his kind public apology to the federal judicial power. … We will continue to favor institutional dialogue for the benefit of the people of Mexico,” Zaldívar subsequently remarked on Twitter.
Vaccination convoy: buses head north with candidates for Covid vaccine.
The governor-elect of Nuevo León and his influencer wife were among 800 residents of the northern border state who crossed into the United States aboard 40 buses on Wednesday to be vaccinated against Covid-19.
Accompanied by federal and state security forces, three fleets of buses departed Monterrey on a staggered schedule Wednesday morning to travel about 300 kilometers to the border city of Laredo, Texas, where governor-elect Samuel García, his wife Mariana Rodríguez and employees of companies such as pharmacy chain Farmacias del Ahorro, PepsiCo, building materials firm Cemex and budget airline Viva Aerobus were given shots.
All of those vaccinated were aged under 40 and had not yet had the opportunity to get a jab in Nuevo León, which ranks third in Mexico for total coronavirus case numbers behind only Mexico City and México state.
“… It’s an opportunity for young people to get the vaccine. It’s an opportunity for them to look after their health and that of their family,” said García, who organized the initiative intended for the employees of manufacturing businesses that export products to the U.S.
Another 37 busloads were forecast to make the trip Thursday, with more to follow next Monday.
Rodríguez and García aboard one of the buses on Wednesday with their vaccination certificates.
“We wholeheartedly thank the United States government, which knows that Nuevo León and the northeastern region of the country are key actors for [economic] growth,” he said.
The United States’ southern border remains closed to nonessential travel from Mexico but there is optimism that it will reopen soon as vaccination rates continue to rise on both sides of the border.
García described yesterday’s trip as a complete success, asserting that it sent a message to all citizens about the importance of getting inoculated against Covid-19, which has claimed more than 250,000 lives in Mexico, according to official figures.
“… [The trip] was very well-organized and ultra-protected [by the security forces],” said the governor-elect, who will take office in October.
“… The path to health is to vaccinate ourselves; we have to set the example that there is no other way out of [the pandemic].”
Additional convoys of buses will take more Nuevo León residents into Texas to get vaccinated today and in the coming days. There is a glut of Covid-19 vaccines in the United States and they are widely available to non-U.S. citizens, a situation of which many Mexicans have taken advantage. The U.S. government has also supported Mexico’s vaccination efforts by sending millions of doses south.
Domestically, more than 78.7 million shots have been administered since the vaccination drive began on December 24, the federal Health Ministry reported Wednesday. About 43% of the entire population of Mexico has received at least one dose, according to The New York Times vaccinations tracker, while 23% of the country’s approximately 126 million residents are fully vaccinated. Just over six in 10 Mexican adults – Mexico has not yet started administered shots to people under 18 – had received one shot as of Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the delta variant-driven third wave continues to surge. A single-day record of almost 29,000 confirmed cases was reported Wednesday, lifting Mexico’s accumulated case tally to 3.15 million. The Health Ministry also reported 940 additional Covid-19 fatalities, increasing the overall death toll to 250,469.
Hurricane warning areas are indicated in red; tropical storm warnings in blue. us national hurricane center
Hurricane Grace made landfall south of Tulum at 4:45 a.m. CDT as a Category 1 hurricane generating winds of 130 kmh with gusts to 155 kmh, the National Water Commission (Conagua) said.
There have been reports of minor damage while more than 149,000 homes were left without electricity in Cancún, Cozumel and Tulum.
The storm was located 180 kilometers east of Campeche and 135 kilometers west of Tulum at 10:00 a.m. CDT and moving west at 30 kmh, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. Maximum winds had decreased to 100 kmh.
A hurricane warning is in effect for the coast of Veracruz from the city of Veracruz to Cabo Rojo and a tropical storm warning for the Yucatán Peninsula from Tulum to Campeche and from Cabo Rojo to Barra del Tordo in Tamaulipas.
Grace is forecast to continue crossing the Yucatán Peninsula Thursday, weakening as it does so, and move over the southwest Gulf of Mexico late Thursday night through Friday before making a second landfall on the coast of Veracruz as a Category 1 hurricane late Friday or early Saturday.
The national Civil Protection office declared a red alert Thursday morning for the eastern region of Yucatán.
Torrential rains are forecast in Yucatán and Quintana Roo during the next 24 hours, Conagua said in a bulletin issued at 5:00 a.m. CDT, with accumulated totals exceeding 250 millimeters and winds gusting to 150 kmh.
Three to five-meter waves and storm surges are forecast in coastal areas of both states.
Mexico City on August 8, 2021: lots of masks, not so much social distancing. Luis Barron / Eyepix Group/Barcroft Media via Getty Images
Cases of Covid-19 are surging around the world, but the course of the pandemic varies widely country to country. To provide a global view as we approach a year and a half since the official declaration of the pandemic, Conversation editors from around the world commissioned articles looking at specific countries and where they are now in combating the pandemic.
Here, Adolfo Martinez Valle and Felicia Marie Knaul, public health scholars who have been tracking the pandemic across Latin America, report on the third wave of Covid-19 that is now spreading in Mexico.
New Covid-19 cases in Mexico are approaching the highest levels seen during the second wave in late January 2021. There are now close to 22,000 cases daily, mostly in younger people – who are not yet eligible for vaccines – and other unvaccinated people. Three variants of the virus of international concern are spreading fast: alpha, gamma and delta.
Deaths remain much lower than during the peak of Mexico’s last wave. By early August 2021, more than 400 people were dying of Covid-19 in Mexico every day. That is high and rising, but back in January 2021, Mexico had about 1,300 daily deaths.
Still, with 192 deaths per 100,000 people, Mexico’s Covid-19 mortality rate is the world’s fourth highest, behind Brazil, Colombia and Argentina, which we believe is due to the Mexican government’s response and lack of sufficient precautions by the population. For comparison, the U.S. Covid-19 mortality rate is 188 deaths per 100,000 people.
Vaccination coverage has been increasing since February 2021, which is helping to stem the third wave, but less than 40% of Mexico’s 128 million people have received at least one dose. Only 21% were fully inoculated against Covid-19 as of August 7.
Mexico’s relatively low vaccine coverage rates are not mainly due to lack of supply – the problem that has kept the vast majority of people in low- and middle-income countries unvaccinated. Nearly 20 million of Mexico’s 91 million available doses remain unused.
Vaccine rollout has lagged because of several failures by the federal government.
One is an overall lack of federal collaboration with state and local governments, and with community health organizations. Another is that President López Obrador created special Covid-19 brigades called “Roadrunner” to distribute vaccines rather than relying on Mexico’s proven, extensive and existing public health infrastructure.
The targeting of vaccines is an additional problem. Healthcare workers in the private sector were controversially left out of the official group-by-group vaccination rollout. And a lack of focus on the elderly meant that 24% of people over age 60 are still not fully vaccinated.
Both distribution and availability of vaccines would have to improve significantly to meet the Mexican government’s goal of vaccinating at least 70% of the country by June 2022.
A vaccination center in Mexico City August 10. ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP via Getty Images
From March 2021 to July 2021, following the downward trend in infections and deaths, Mexican cities and states gradually relaxed virus containment policies such as mask-wearing and travel restrictions. However, when both infections and deaths began to spike in late July, stricter public health measures returned.
For example, in March 2021 the government allowed gatherings of up to 1,000 people, and by July gatherings were restricted to 10 people or fewer.
Mexico uses a four-colored epidemiological system to track the pandemic nationally. It determines which activities are safe to resume. A report issued on August 9 shows seven of the nation’s 32 states in red status – meaning only essential activities are allowed. Nine are yellow – a moderate level of restrictions – and 15 are orange, with more stringent limitations on commercial and social activities.
Only the southern state of Chiapas is green, allowing residents a full return to normal activities.
Based on our analysis of the Mexican government response, we’d argue that it has not followed a robust, evidence-based public health approach to its pandemic management.
Lockdowns were late and partial. Testing, contact tracing, quarantines and isolation programs – essential elements in managing outbreaks to avoid resorting to painful and costly national shutdowns – have been minimal. Mexico has a notably low level of testing, even compared with other Latin American countries.
Such measures vary from city to city and state to state due to the absence of a coordinated, timely and rigorous national pandemic response. For example, our research found widely varying stringency of state responses that were based not on testing and the local disease burden but rather on economic and political factors.
Mexico is one of the few countries in the region with no international border-crossing policy. Travelers are allowed to pass in and out without proof of a negative test, vaccination or recent resolved infection.
National leaders have set a less-than-exemplary approach to mask use. Both the president and Mexico’s top health official have repeatedly appeared in public gatherings without a face covering.
Some state governments – like those in Guanajuato, Jalisco, Nuevo León, and Guanajuato – have stepped up in terms of implementing public health measures where federal policy is weak or absent; others have not.
Mexico had been globally recognized in the past two decades for its rigor and innovation with regard to pandemic preparedness, yet much of this system was dismantled when the López Obrador administration took office in 2019.
We draw several policy lessons from Mexico that can help other countries determine what to do – and not do – in this and future pandemic waves.
President López Obrador, maskless, briefs the press on active Covid-19 cases in Mexico on June 10. Hector Vivas/Getty Images
In crises, governments must generate and disseminate reliable, credible and science-based information to encourage people to adopt appropriate mitigation measures. Studies show confusing or incorrect messages cost lives.
Our research also finds that in a decentralized federal government system like Mexico’s – or the United States’ – state and local governments are a critical part of any pandemic plan, but they need centralized, evidence-based coordination and strategic guidance from the federal government. When the federal government falls short, states make and implement their own policies. That leads to a less-than-ideal national pandemic response.
Testing, contact tracing and vaccination are the cornerstones of an effective response to the pandemic. Containment policies, or so-called “nonpharmaceutical interventions” like mask-wearing and lockdowns, can be used more sparingly when these systems are in place.
Mexico failed to apply an evidence-based, national strategy based on the above knowledge. So it has been compelled to impose strict and painful restrictions, slowing the country’s return to normalcy and damaging the economy.
A more evidence-based approach would have helped Mexico over the past 18 months, and it still can going forward.
The authors of this piece are Adolfo Martinez Valle, Head of Academic Unit, Health Public and Population Research Center, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and Felicia Marie Knaul, Director, Institute for Advanced Study of the Americas, University of Miami. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Alfredo Corchado is the Mexico City bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News.
Whether you have questions about the Virgin of Guadalupe, migration to the United States, Mexican drag queens preparing for a gay beauty contest, drug cartels, AMLO’s presidency or opera in Tijuana, two seasoned reporters scheduled to give an informal talk online on Sunday will have an opinion on it.
The San Miguel Literary Sala will bring together accomplished journalists Sam Quinones and Alfredo Corchado to share their insights with viewers on a variety of topics, ranging from relating to life and society in Mexico and the country’s relationship with the U.S. in an interactive Zoom webinar being offered virtually to the public.
Both award-winning writers have lived in and covered Mexico for decades.
Quinones, a reporter for 32 years and the author of four acclaimed books, grew up in California and is best known for his reporting on Mexico and on Mexicans in the United States. He is the author of True Tales from Another Mexico and Antonio’s Gun and Delfin’s Dream: True Tales of Mexican Migration.
His latest book, Dreamland, discusses the surprising origins of the opioid crisis, the explosion in heroin use and how one small Mexican town changed how heroin was produced and sold in America. The San Francisco Chronicle Book Review has called Quinones “the most original writer on Mexico and the border out there.”
Sam Quinones is an award-winning journalist and author of Dreamland, which explores the surprising origins of the opioid crisis.
Corchado, Mexico City bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News and author of Midnight in Mexico and Homelands: Four Friends, Two Countries, and the Fate of the Great Mexican-American Migration, was born in Durango and migrated to the U.S. as a child. Along with his parents, he became a migrant farmworker in San Joaquin Valley, California.
When he was 13, he was interviewed by PBS about the lives of farmworkers, and that exchange stayed with him for life once he realized that people cared about how farmworkers lived and were interested in “giving us a voice.” Corchado’s knowledge of the Mexican political system, the drug trade and modern Mexican society is unparalleled.
This event, taking place on Sunday from 6–7:30 p.m. in Central Daylight Time, is an opportunity to ask your burning questions to two award-winning writers who have lived in and covered Mexico for decades. Tickets cost from US $5 to US $50 — pay what you wish. For more information, go to the San Miguel Literary Sala website.
The number of new Covid cases set a record on Wednesday. The federal Ministry of Health reported 28,953 cases in the previous 24 hours, breaking the record set last week.
The number of estimated coronavirus cases shot up to 145,716 and there were 940 deaths.
Coronavirus cases and deaths in Mexico as reported by day. milenio
Ten states are experiencing the worst of the outbreak, and represent 66% of all cases in the country. They are Mexico City, México state, Nuevo León, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Tabasco, Puebla, Sonora, Veracruz and San Luis Potosí.
Adela González, one of the fair's vendors, makes Puebla's popular memelas (large corn tortillas) hot and fresh on the comal grill. photos by Joseph Sorrentino
The 12th Feria de la Nuez de Castilla in San Pedro Yancuitlalpan, Puebla — a fair celebrating traditional food found in and around San Pedro that opened this past weekend and runs for two more — is definitely not a place to go if you’re on a diet. But it’s a great place to eat some excellent cuisine from the state — and not just chile en nogada, one of the state’s signature dishes.
About 20 stands are set up on the grounds of the Church of the Immaculata Concepción (which was probably built atop a pre-Hispanic pyramid). The majority are found in the lower area of the church grounds and all of the stands located there are serving one of the dishes the region is famous for.
“Chile en nogada is the main dish served here, and the most popular,” said Ana Maria Sandie Trifundio, who organized this year’s fair and has her own stand. “It is because the people from San Pedro produce all the ingredients.”
Chile en nogada is a poblano chile stuffed with fruits, nuts and, typically, pork. It’s then covered with a delicious white sauce made with walnuts, queso fresco (farmer’s cheese) and queso Filadelfia (Philadelphia cream cheese) that’s thinned with a little milk and topped with a sprig of parsley and some pomegranate seeds, giving the dish the colors of the Mexican flag.
Although chile en nogada can now be found all across Mexico, it’s most closely associated with Puebla and with August and September, when the ingredients needed to make it are being harvested.
Local products and the traditional Puebla dishes made from them are the stars at the fair, in its 12th year.
But the vendors set up directly in front of the church go beyond chile en nogada.
Filomena Amozoqueño has been selling her food at the fair for 10 years, serving up bean tamales, nopal salad and rice as well as mole rojo and mole verde. Salsa de chito — a salsa she makes by hand using tomatoes, guajillo chile and garlic, to which she adds some dried goat meat — is one of her specialties, she said. “This fair is important because it preserves our tradition,” she said, “and also helps us economically.”
Across the plaza from Amozoqueño’s stand is Antojitos Doña Ade, where owner Adela González can be found presiding over a Mexican skillet called a comal. She’s a traditionalist when it comes to preparing food. “Everything is made by hand,” she said. “We are accustomed to making things by hand, and the food has a better flavor.”
She makes memelas, thick corn tortillas that she toasts on the comal and covers with beans and salsa. There’s also an interesting, and extremely tasty, tostada made with blue corn, which has requesón (a ricotta-like cheese), crema, avocado and pomegranate seeds — another nod to the Mexican flag. “We only use food that is produced here,” she added proudly. “Even the requesón is made here.”
For the more adventurous, her food can be topped with chapulines: roasted grasshoppers. According to a sign hanging above her stand, chapulin is a Náhuatl word meaning “insects that jump like a rubber ball.” Grasshoppers are rich in several vitamins and minerals and a good source of protein.
“I was sent an invitation,” said Maria de Socorro Tlapa of Cholula, who trained as a chef and is the owner of Yuyu Cupcakes there. She was enjoying González’s food with her brother, Alejandro Tlapa, including the grasshoppers. “I like that the food is continuing the tradition in the area,” she said. “Here, I like the tostada with chapulines. Chapulines are crunchy but soft, a little spicy and acidic because lime is added.”
After enjoying some of the cuisine, strolling around the grounds a bit and perusing what non-edible items are available is a good way to make room for dessert. Marcelina Gómez Analco’s stand features jewelry she makes from beans, nuts, peach pits and acorns.
“I make these,” she said, “so people can buy something that will remind them of the pueblo.”
Nearby, Lidia Temich Cantero was selling objects made from a pine tree called Ocote Moctezuma, a tree whose needles are very long. “I collect the material that has fallen on the ground,” Temich explained. “[I] wash it and dry it well. I can then make things from it.”
The earrings and hair barrettes she sells take her about half an hour to make, while larger items like a small bag will take her about a week.
Yeni Popoca Fernández has an ice cream stand on one side of the church where she sells helado de nogada.
Martha Cabrera with her helado de nogada, an ice cream dish using some of chile en nogada’s elemental ingredients.
This dish is vanilla ice cream with walnuts, apples, peaches and pears. She tops it with crema de salsa nogada (a sauce made from walnuts), pomegranate seeds and a sprig of parsley — these seem to be required at the fair — and serves it in a corn husk.
Martha Cabrera sat nearby, greatly enjoying the dessert. “The helado en nogada has a good flavor, and I liked the concept of using corn husks instead of plastic plates,” she said. “I also like that it is decorated like chile en nogada.”
Another stand has buñuelos — large fried dough that can be topped with sugar or honey. Or both, if desired.
The annual fair, said Sandie, is an opportunity for the pueblo to highlight and share its traditional foods.
“We do this to rescue our roots and the origins of the pueblo, to rescue pre-Hispanic foods,” she said. “We have food like … cacamas [beans], yelo tlachchal [a tortilla made with corn and honey], tlapextumal [a flat tamale with mole verde] and salsa made by hand. This is food that is healthy and flavorful.”
San Pedro, like everywhere in the world, was affected by the virus. Popoca’s family all had Covid-19. “We were in quarantine for 40 days,” she said.
[wpgmza id=”343″]
Despite that, she’s at the fair. “I am nervous. Everybody is. But we have to work. We have to pay for everything. It is like I say, ‘If I stay home, I die from hunger. If I go out, I die from Covid.’”
She wore a mask, something that’s required to enter the grounds, and used sanitizing gel liberally, as did all of the fair’s participants. The fair is held outdoors to lessen any chance of transmission.
The event runs for two more weekends — on August 21–22 and on August 28–29. It opens around 11:00 and closes when, as participating cook Sandra Popoca Ochoa said, there are no more people to serve. Or, as Amozoqueño put it, “Hasta que el cuerpo aguante” (as long as the body allows).
A heads-up: one of the invitations sent out to this event — the one that de Socorro had — says that San Pedro is a 20-minute drive from Cholula. Unless you’re driving even faster than most people in Mexico, it’s actually about 45 minutes. But it’s worth a trip, however long it takes.
Rev. José Luis Martínez Chávez leads Mass next to the place where an armed group damaged the road, blocking access.
Residents of a city in the Tierra Caliente region, ravaged for months by a cartel turf war, prayed for peace alongside church leaders on Monday.
The group held a Mass next to a highway in Coalcomán, Michoacán, where a cartel has cut off access. The faithful numbered around 100 in a photo published by the newspaper El Universal.
Hundreds of families, at least 3,000 people, have fled Coalcomán in the last 11 days, forced out by violence and its related afflictions: shortages of electricity, food, water, and phone and internet services.
The city is only about 50 kilometers (126 kilometers by road) from Aguililla, the center of a violent turf war between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Cárteles Unidos.
Residents, municipal authorities and church leaders have complained that although state and federal security barracks are present in the area, local people have not been afforded any protection.
The priest prays in front of one of the ditches dug by armed groups to block access to Coalcomán.
Priest José Luis Martínez Chávez, who led the prayers, explained his motivation in video uploaded to Facebook: “We wanted these antagonistic groups, powerful groups … to know that we are praying for peace and that we are not afraid … we want to collapse the walls of hatred they have created, to create fraternity. Where they have opened ditches, we want to build bridges, where they have sown hatred we want to sow peace,” he said.
One resident revealed the undignified way residents had been treated. “We had to leave … by motorcycle because the roads were being cut off. [The criminals] took us and left us without any clothes,” she said.
She explained that 10 members of her family were forced to abandon their homes when armed men arrived, and had no time to gather important documents. She said they thought they would be killed and their houses burned.
A mother detailed her family’s rushed escape. “I was afraid we wouldn’t get out, as we were in the middle of the shootout … that was my worst fear, that we wouldn’t be able to get out of there alive … We took the risk to leave in the van. We had to leave everything. We got away in just what we were wearing and fast, because we were afraid that we’d get hit by a bullet,” she said.
Governor Silvano Aureoles downplayed the violence in the area: “There are exchanges of gunfire from one hill to another, but obviously, the people who live in the communities there are afraid,” he said.
