Mexico (Bollywood Fever): Thousands of residents abandoned the small Mexican town of Tila, escaping a brutal three-day siege by heavily armed men, turning it into a ghost town. Despite the presence of government troops now patrolling the empty streets, the fear persists among the residents.
“All night we listened to bullets go by,” recounted Maria, a resident of Tila, located about 140 miles (230 km) from the Chiapas state capital, Tuxtla Gutierrez.
On the night of June 4, dozens of heavily armed men arrived in Tila in trucks, firing at houses and businesses and setting buildings ablaze, witnesses told Reuters. A man, who chose to remain anonymous for safety reasons, mentioned that the armed men returned the next day with high-caliber weapons and military attire.
The violence in Tila continued until June 7, when the army arrived. State authorities reported that around 5,000 troops have been deployed to the area and six suspects have been detained.
All of Tila’s approximately 4,000 residents fled their homes, with many taking government buses to nearby shelters, where they are currently sleeping on mats on the ground.
“We are not going back,” declared Saul, a 60-year-old merchant. “Until we know that when we leave our houses, they are not going to kill us.”
Residents who fled described the attackers as masked individuals, some appearing to be underage, looting stores, setting cars on fire, and attempting to break into homes. Footage taken after the attack shows a deserted town, with streets littered with charred vehicles, shattered windows, and bullet holes.
Many Mexican communities have become ghost towns as people seek safety from gang violence by applying for asylum in the United States. While the government attributes the violence in Tila to a local land dispute, residents claim that organized crime groups have been extorting them for a long time, punishing those who failed to pay.
“For months, anyone who did not pay was killed,” Maria explained from a shelter in Yajalon, some 20 miles (30 km) away. “They threatened to recruit young people, to rape women, and that’s why we left.”
Residents reported escalating violence over recent years, alongside an increase in drug trafficking and extortion.
Mexico’s President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, who will take office in October, has vowed to combat extortion in the country, which has become a battleground for criminal cartels trafficking drugs to U.S. markets. While the U.S. government has urged Mexico to intensify its crackdown on drug crime, Mexico has been pressing the U.S. to do more to prevent firearms from crossing its southern border.
Once relatively untouched by gang violence, Chiapas is now the scene of a turf war between the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and Sinaloa Cartel, leading to increased violence and extortion.
“They burned both of my houses,” another Tila resident said. “We are waiting for the authorities to take serious measures.”
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