After an escalation in homicides in the border city of Ciudad Juárez, which was attributed by the authorities to clashes between criminal gangs that traffic people and drugs, a detachment of at least 400 specialize Mexican Army Special Forces against violence arrived this week to reinforce security efforts.
Only this Monday there were 16 homicides in a single day in Ciudad Juárez.
The violence in the area caused the United States consulate to issue a travel alert to its citizens to avoid passing through the Janos area (Chihuahua), a municipality located 200 kilometers southwest of Juárez El Paso, which is a site of high migratory flow.
The Command of the Fifth Military Zone reported through a statement that there are 400 soldiers who will support federal, state and municipal authorities in security work to reduce homicide rates, as reported by the Secretary of National Defense in a statement issued on Tuesday.
The soldiers arrived on Tuesday morning aboard a military plane.
The statement also reports that these soldiers are a special unit “characterized by their mobility, speed, and deployment capacity.”
The mayor of Ciudad Juárez, Cruz Pérez Cuéllar, said that the rise in intentional homicides in recent days is due to a clash between gangs that are dedicated to trafficking people and drugs.
“There are indications that it has to do with human trafficking, there is a dispute between criminal groups that are engaged in illegal trafficking. Apparently there was a dispute that reached a peak yesterday but we are attending to it and we are in full coordination with the prosecutor’s office. An internal rupture in the groups is what caused this spike in homicides,” he said at a press conference.
He added that the flow of people in transit through the state of Tamaulipas (northeast Mexico) has decreased considerably, since it is even more dangerous for migrants in that state, and it has increased in Chihuahua.