Kidnapped for 22 Days, Villagers Recount How Cartels Control Communities in Mexico
Villagers say the cartel used blindfolds, beatings and forced interrogations to control captives and pressure the community into accepting its demands.
- On September 24, gunmen from La Familia abducted eight residents from El Balcán, a remote community of 750 people in Guerrero state, targeting the village's logging resources.
- El Balcán, a model of sustainable forestry, had resisted cartel demands to grow poppies for decades. Residents refused to collaborate or flee, making them targets for the cartel's territorial expansion.
- Villagers held for 22 days reported being part of a group of 136 captives. Blindfolded, they were cramped together in a house and forced to hold handcuffed hands to their mouths to eat.
- On October 16, the army located six missing men through military intelligence operations following community pressure. Priest Filiberto Velázquez urged federal authorities to intervene, as more than 100 other captives remained unaccounted for.
- Survivors' accounts offer rare insight into Mexico's 130,000 disappeared individuals. While the military remains in El Balcán, residents gather nightly to share fears as the cartel maintains territorial control.
19 Articles
19 Articles
Kidnapped for 22 days, villagers recount how cartels control communities in Mexico – WTOP News
EL BALCÓN, Mexico (AP) — An elderly man recalled how gunmen asked what kind of death he preferred. A teenager recounted his terror at the thought of being turned into a hit man as gunmen talked about sending people off to fight. Another man begged his captors to shoot him rather than prolong his suffering....
The Toronto Star
Kidnapped for 22 days, villagers recount how cartels control communities in Mexico
EL BALCÓN, Mexico (AP) — An elderly man recalled how gunmen asked what kind of death he preferred. A teenager recounted his terror at the thought of being turned into a hit man as gunmen talked about sending people off…
El Vocero de Puerto Rico
Independent EspañolAn old man remembers how they played with them asking what death they preferred. A teenager, his terror that they would turn him into a hit man because the gunmen said they were going to send some to fight. A man asked desperate to be shot so as not to prolong the suffering.
Residents of the community of El Balcón, in the Sierra de Guerrero, recounted the weeks of captivity that they lived after being kidnapped by an armed group that broke into the town on September 24. Six of the eight peasants deprived of their liberty were located and later released...
Testimonies of six peasants kidnapped from El Balcon describe threats, forced recruitment and criminal pressure to seize land and resources.
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