Zacatecas: The War Does Not Stop

“Guerrero” for Borderland Beat

At dawn on Wednesday, the Zacatecan municipality of Villa de Cos, adjacent to San Luis Potosí , was the scene of a massacre. Around four in the morning, a fierce shooting began to be heard in a community located on the outskirts of the municipal seat. When they went to the place, elements of the Army and the municipal police found ten bodies scattered inside a house. For now, the identity of the victims and the causes of the mass murder are not known.

Scene of the Villa de Cos shooting

It was not the only serious incident of the week in Zacatecas. October began with the murder of seven people in Fresnillo, which occurred in several violent incidents. One of them involved the beheading of a person. In another, a group of armed men took the victim from her home and shot her in the middle of the street, without fear of being identified by neighbors.

This has already become daily bread. Fifteen days ago, 25 people were killed in the state over a weekend. Between January and August, Zacatecas accumulated 1,042 victims of intentional homicide and femicide . That is equivalent to 4.5% of the national total in a state that concentrates 1.3% of the country's population. If the current pace is maintained in the remainder of 2021, Zacatecas could unseat Colima as the state with the highest homicide rate.

This escalation of violence has generated an atmosphere of panic in many municipalities of the state. In Fresnillo, according to data from the National Urban Public Safety Survey , 96.2% of adult inhabitants felt unsafe in their city last June. It is not for less: according to the same source, 76.4% of the inhabitants of that municipality have heard frequent shots with firearms in the surroundings of their home.

Scene from the April 2021 attack on the city hall of Tepetongo, Zacatecas

Insecurity is not limited to cities. A few months ago, several Zacatecan migrant organizations denounced a notable increase in assaults and extortion suffered by countrymen on state highways, particularly in the section between Concepción del Oro and Zacatecas. Three months ago, the Canaco de Durango called not to travel by road to Zacatecas due to the constant number of cargo trucks.

There is no single cause for this disaster. As I argued here a few months ago, Zacatecas suffers from a notable police shortage. According to the National Census of Government, Public Security and State Penitentiary System 2019 , Zacatecas had 2,154 state policemen last year. It also had 1297 elements of the municipal corporations. The bulk of this staff is also deployed in the main urban centers.

Added to this absence is a fierce inefficiency of the law enforcement authorities. According to the organization Impunidad Cero, impunity for homicide in Zacatecas was 91% in 2019, above the national rate.

Zacatecas Governor David Monreal Ávila

Faced with this disaster, what is the proposal of the new governor, David Monreal? In his inauguration, he announced that there would be a presence of the National Guard (GN) in the 58 municipalities of the state. Considering that the GN had 1928 elements in the state until last month (less than there were a year ago), it does not seem that that is enough to change the equation. Perhaps, given the political sign of the new government, it could improve coordination with the Federal Government. But would that be enough for a state facing a monumental crisis? I'm not sure.

For now, the only certainty is that the war continues in Zacatecas and nothing on the horizon seems to indicate that it will stop anytime soon.

Source: Journalist Alejandro Hope writing for El Universal