All Tamaulipas, a War Zone

The state of Tamaulipas - Well lately it has been very depressing here in Tamaulipas, I just get so tired of reading and watching the news on television, death and suffering everywhere. You can’t get away from it. Out on the streets it’s even worse, people are afraid, very afraid.

Everyone knows someone who has been killed or someone who has disappeared never to be found. It is so surreal, people just try to carry on with normal business of life, but Tamaulipas is not the same. The drug cartels are affecting the whole state in a dramatic way.

The war between drug cartels in Tamaulipas has reached unsustainable levels: the sicarios fight at all times and in all places. They take over entire villages to use as battle grounds and nothing stops them to conceal themselves among the population.

The war between the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas has spread from north to south in this state without local and federal authorities showing any effectiveness in protecting civilians who are increasingly fearful of being victims of shootings or abuses or excessive violence committed by the criminals or from elements of the armed forces.

The federal government contends that the highway narco-blockades or the massive assisted escapes of prisoners or the constant attacks on police and military installations occurring regularly here are "desperate reactions" from organized crime because they are in "a terrible crisis." However, the facts seen here is that these criminal groups are engaged in a struggle for control of plazas and have taken the state of Tamaulipas hostage.

According to the Interior Minister Fernando Gomez Mont the breakup of these two criminal groups, which at one time worked together as one, is only resulting in the annihilation each other. "What the Federation is doing is going in so others not to enter, that is to isolate them so that they do not enter in to the urban centers and hold them responsible where they find them, mainly looking to protect the urban centers," he said during a news conference.

But the fighting between these groups occurred during business hours and in crowded places in cities like Victoria, Reynosa and Tampico. In fact residents have reported that these criminal organizations have taken over cities and entire rural communities to stage their battles grounds in places like Mante, San Fernando, Valle Hermoso, González, Xicoténcatl, Mier, Camargo, Nueva Ciudad Guerrero, Díaz Ordaz, Miguel Alemán, Río Bravo, Hidalgo, Burgos, Jiménez, Abasolo and Soto la Marina.

Schools have recorded an amazing 60% in absenteeism in the majority of these cities, while in some municipalities of the area known as "frontera chica" (Mier, Guerrero, Camargo, Miguel Díaz Ordaz and German) students did not attend school for several weeks due to the violence.

Businesses have been forces to close because of shootouts in the downtown areas or to the virtual curfews “toques de queda” that have been imposed against them not to mention the fear of being caught in a confrontation.

The number of innocent victims of these wars that are being waged by the federal government against organized crime and the ones waged within the same criminal groups are very difficult to quantify because many deaths go unreported and the practice of the federal government to conceal the information.

But sometimes we do see or hear about the violence within our communities and its heart breaking when it involves children.

Like the most recent case of the murder of the children Bryan and Martin Almanza Salazar, 5 and 9 years old, who were killed by soldiers who mistook their vehicle while they were traveling with their family for a vacation to the beach in Matamoros on Easter day.

And then last month on March 21 two other children died: Uziel Izaí Mariano Juarez, 7 years old, and his brother Gamaliel 10, were killed in a crossfire when the bus they were traveling in with their family from Veracruz, heading to their hometown in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, was hijacked by thugs to be used as a barricade during a confrontation with rival criminal groups on top of a bridge in Tampico.

We see it on the news, but here the news are real. Once has to woder how many people have lost their lives here in Tamaulipas?

The state attorney general's office reported 161 homicides and 26 people injured between February 1 and April 6. Half of the deaths (80) occurred in confrontation between armed groups, the rest are executions in "various incidents." The average age of those killed is 25 years old. It is tragic in all points.

Thank you my friends, please pray for Tamaulipas!

The following video is graphic, sorry you have to see this. The people in the state of Tamaulipas see this every day, the only difference is you can choose not to see it, the people there can't.

Categories: Mexican Crime, tamaulipas, video