Matamoros Becomes Ground Zero as Drug War Shifts on Mexican Border John Burnett - NPR.org
go to original April 2, 2015

Matamoros had a reputation as a laid back border town and was relatively quiet when NPR paid a visit last year. Now, a feud between rival drug gangs keeps citizens inside and visitors away. (Kainaz Amaria/NPR)

Matamoros, which sits across the bridge from Brownsville, Texas, used to be a laid-back border town famed for margaritas and manufacturing.

But for at least the last five years, it's grown more and more violent: first, when the Zetas broke away from the Gulf Cartel, and more recently as a new feud has broken out between two factions within the Gulf.

It's the current hotspot in the mafia wars that seem to shift every few years up and down the U.S.-Mexico border. A feud between rival drug gangs has terrorized the citizens of this historic border city — officially known as Heroica Matamoros.

In February, the U.S. State Department warned consulate personnel to stay indoors to avoid the daytime convoys of cartel gunmen, some armed with grenade launchers.

Throughout this city of a half-million, people are tense and wary. And they have reason to be. Matamoros periodically erupts in fearsome gun battles between militias of coked-up narcos in muscle trucks or between the narcos and ski-masked soldiers.

Public life and commerce have withered in this once vibrant tourist town on the lower Rio Grande.

Read the rest at NPR.org

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