Schools and businesses in Culiacan, the state capital of Sinaloa, shut down Thursday and upcoming festivities around Mexican Independence have been canceled as fears over clashes between factions of the Sinaloa cartel disrupt life in the northern city of 1 million.
Sinaloa Gov. Rubén Rocha and outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador – both of the ruling Morena party – have downplayed the situation and said that local, state and federal forces are ensuring safety in the area.
But despite the recent deployment of special forces soldiers, planes and heavily armed helicopters, the fear continues. Even Rocha recognized that the clashes, which have followed the arrest in the U.S. of two cartel leaders in late July, could continue.
Security forces are “dissuading some violent acts but above all reducing the risks to the population to a minimum,” Rocha said in a video posted to social media Thursday.
Still, for safety reasons, he said “there will not be any celebration” for the Sept. 15-16 holiday, adding that school will be suspended Thursday and Friday because so few students showed up.
The governor maintained the state has sufficient security presence to protect people, but around Culiacan people appear to have a very different view.
“The government doesn’t control anything, absolutely nothing,” said Ismael Bojórquez, director of the weekly newspaper Riodoce in Culiacan, which specializes in coverage of organized crime. “There is a lot of fear. The people are defenseless.”
Bojórquez said that cartel gunmen have their shootouts, kidnap and burn, then the government arrives to clean up and take away the burned vehicles.
The capital feels semi-deserted, he said. Faced with inaction from the government, residents took their own precautions including not sending their children to school, he said.
The surge in violence had been expected after Joaquín Guzmán López, a son of former Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, landed near El Paso, Texas on July 25 in a small plane with Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.
Zambada was the cartel’s elder figure and reclusive leader. After his arrest, he said in a letter circulated by his lawyer that he had been abducted by the younger Guzmán and taken to the U.S. against his will.
Now there appears to be a struggle for power between the remaining sons of El Chapo, known locally as “the Chapitos,” and those loyal to Zambada.
“There’s obviously a fight for power” inside the cartel, Bojóquez said. “The only thing the government is doing is watching, observing the clash between the Chapitos and El Mayo’s people,” he said. “There’s no action against the drug trafficking cells.” ___
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