Acapulco suspends classes until January 8th due to wave of violence in outlying neighborhoods

Translated by El Profe for Borderland Beat from SinEmbargo            

                 

In some areas of Acapulco there is no public transport and classes were suspended in 14 schools in the area, where teachers and parents agreed to return January 8, 2018. Also, Ciudad Renacimiento, Mozimba, Progreso including UAG schools chose to suspend activities due to insecurity.

By Jacob Morales Antonio

Guerrero / Mexico City, December 9 (ElSur / SinEmbargo) .- The wave of violence that began last Tuesday in the Sinaí neighborhood spread and affected 28 surrounding neighborhoods where there is no public transportation, and caused the suspension of classes of 14 schools in the area where teachers and parents agreed to return their children January 8, 2018.

10 days after the holidays began, the schools yesterday looked empty and closed, without any notice on their doors. But they are not the only ones, other schools of Ciudad Renacimiento, Mozimba, Progreso and even the Autonomous University of Guerrero (UAG) also opted to suspend classes due to insecurity.

On a tour of Sinaí and other surrounding neighborhoods, El Sur noted the closure of the buildings, located in areas populated by Afro-descendant and indigenous migrants from Costa Chica and Montaña del Estado, who work in hotels, shopping centers, or sell handicrafts on the beaches.

In the streets, from 9 in the morning to 11 in the day there was not a single municipal patrol, state or military policemen. On the other hand, at the corners of El Quemado and Carnation avenues, there were people desperate due to the only Sinaí-Hospital and feeder Sector 6 busses not running.

The passenger vans, which are the ones that go into the neighborhoods, suspended their routes since Thursday afternoon, after the murder of a driver of the Jacarandas - Intersection route in front of the Central de Abasto. On Tuesday, three more drivers of the yellow buses of the Sector 6-Downtown route were executed in the Sinaí neighborhood.

In that neighborhood -Sinaí- where Catholics, evangelicals and Jehovah's Witnesses live together, the streets have biblical names, and during Thursday evening there were scenes of intense shootings between members of antagonistic criminal groups, and the State Police. Neighbor versions indicated that two drivers were deprived of their liberty during exchanges of fire.

The confrontations spread, according to the own versions of neighbors from the bordering neighborhoods such as Jacarandas, Alborada 19, in Tierra and Libertad, and CNC, and with that panic ensued, causing the absence of vigils for the Virgin of Juquila.

Yesterday morning the only spaces with life were the corners of the streets and the main avenue, where fearfully some expected a bus to pick them up, and everything else looked silent.

At night El Quemado Avenue, which turns into Sinaí, and Betania, looks dark, the street lighting placed two and a half months ago by the state government does not work, among the darkness there are people walking fast, young people, men and women who leave for their workday, but no longer find transportation.

The stretch of road for some is up to 4 kilometers from Boulevard Vicente Guerrero to the Sinaí neighborhood, but there are those who still have to walk to the Alborada neighborhood or its extention, and they do it among the dust and the slowness of the repaving work of the avenue where the Acabús feeder route passes.

The bus routes that do not provide service and that go from the neighborhoods to the intersections are: Jarandas, Unidos por Guerrero, Sinaí, Cervantes Delgado, Izazaga, CNC, Fidel Velázquez, Graciano Sánchez, and Nopalitos.

THE SCHOOLS WITHOUT CLASSES

During the tour the observed schools closed were: the Federal High School number 6 of the Emiliano Zapata neighborhood, one of the largest in the area that serves more than 600 students in the morning shift; Technical High School 199, of the the Unidos por Guerrero neighborhood ; the telesecundaria María del Carmen Rojas, the Bicentennial Elementary and the Indigenous Preschool Education Center (CEPI), and Guadalupe Victoria of the San Miguelito neighborhood.

Also the Native Bilingual Indigenous School Acamapichtli, in the neighborhood Alborada 19; the Elementary School Guerrero es Primero, the Juan R. Escudero Kindergarten of the Sinaí neighborhood, the CEPI Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, in the CNC neighborhood; the Juan Escutia elementary school of the Tierra y Libertad neighborhood.

Likewise, the Bilingual Elementary School Ve'e Savi and the CEPI Gabriela Mistral of the neighborhood Unidos por Guerrero; the Telesecundaria Samuel Quiroz Cabrera and the Technical High School 200 Ángel Aguirre Rivero in the Postal neighborhood.

In the Miguel Alemán Valdez Kindergarten, children, parents and teachers celebrated posadas and the last day of activities, said a mother.

One of the supervisors in the area, who asked not to have his name published for safety, informed that by agreement of parents and teachers, they will not return to school until January 8, due to "the problem that is arising in that place", in reference to the violence.

OTHER SCHOOLS CLOSED

But not only in the suburban zone were classes suspended; High School 4, and Cecyteg 1, of Mozimba, as well as the Hermenegildo Galeana Elementary School of the Juan R. Escudero neighborhood, from the western zone, will return January 8.

In the Ciudad Renacimiento neighborhood, the Ruben Figueroa Alcocer kindergarten stopped activities, and the elementary schools Adolfo Lopez Mateos and Benemérito of the Americas. On the busy Ruiz Cortines Avenue, classes of the College of Psychology and the Bachelor College campus 32 were suspended.