Chilapa Disappearances Highlight the Struggle Between Drug Gangs for Mexico's Poppy Trade Melissa del Pozo - VICE News
go to original May 27, 2015

The wife of Miguel Carreto, one of the people who disappeared in Chilapa on May 10, holds a photo of her husband. (Melissa del Pozo/VICE News)

Lizeth Abundis and her sister Martha were flipping through a tabloid newspaper on Saturday morning when they came upon a photograph that they immediately believed depicted their missing brother.

The photo, however, was not promising.

It showed the torn bodies of three people, wrapped-up in blue and purple blankets, that had been found in Chilapa, a small mountain city now at the center of the latest mass disappearance to shock Mexico.

The sisters noticed one of the dismembered body parts had a tattoo similar to one worn by their 30-year-old brother Gilberto. The sisters were devastated — and furious. They haven't received any confirmation of what happened to their loved one.

* Warning: Image below is graphic

This photograph appeared in a local tabloid newspaper in Chilapa. (VICE News)

...The three bodies seen in the newspaper were found last Thursday morning at Nepaja, one of the 140 mostly indigenous villages contained within the Chilapa municipality.

Guerrero, and Chilapa in particular, produce poppy and in lesser amounts marijuana meant for export in Mexico's huge drug trade. The municipality is also disputed between two drug gangs with roots in the sierras of Guerrero that are deep and often blurry: Los Rojos and Los Ardillos.

The situation in Chilapa reflects the persistent problems with Mexico's US-basked war against powerful drug cartels: Armed, organized, criminal groups with firm local bases of power and influence exert control over a specific territory, and fight back against incursions, or submit to an invading outside cartel.

In the middle, civilians are stuck, suffering the consequences.

Read the rest at VICE News

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!