In Guerrero, Children Take Up Arms Against La Familia Michoacana

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

In some municipalities of Guerrero, criminals attack the population almost every day with explosives launched by drones.

Minors use firearms to defend themselves from La Familia Michoacana

Two 12-year-old boys carry a pair of .22 caliber rifles in their hands, along with seven other 18-year-olds who took up arms to support their parents against La Familia Michoacana and defend their community, Acatlan del Rio, in the municipality of Heliodoro Castillo, Guerrero.

In this place, which MILENIO visited, men aged 12 and older carry guns to defend themselves from drug violence.

The situation in Guerrero

Interview with minor

-How old are you?

I am 12.

-What do you want to tell the government?

That they send us support, that they don't forget about us, about here, about Acatlán.

-Are you afraid?

 Yes.

"Alan", as he asked to be called, can barely carry the rifle, his short stature and thinness do not allow him to hold the weapon, but he knows that if necessary he has to use it to defend his mother and sisters.

Minors take up arms against organized crime

In February 2023, La Familia Michoacana made incursions into this mountainous area of Guerrero, which is difficult to access and can only be reached by dirt roads. It is located 128 kilometers from Chilpancingo, a journey by vehicle that takes more than 7 hours due to the terrible road conditions.

Since then, criminals have been attacking the population almost every day with explosives dropped from drones; at least twenty houses have been affected, their roofs have been destroyed and some have structural damage.

On the bloodiest days, members of La Familia Michoacana drop up to 25 bombs, while the villagers have no choice but to hide under concrete roofs, the problem is that most of the houses are made of tin.

"That's how they dropped a bomb here in my house. But there is something about those bombs because in addition to exploding they also make fire, here in my house there was a blaze, we were burning and I can't run because I don't have a foot," said a woman who asked that her identity not be revealed for fear of reprisals.

This situation has provoked the exodus of the inhabitants of Acatlán del Río, some opted to flee to the United States, others took refuge with relatives in Chilpancingo and Acapulco.

The few who dared to stay did so only to defend what they had built for years with the effort of their work and to prevent their animals from being killed or stolen, their houses from being looted or their vehicles from being taken.

The hitmen of La Familia Michoacana hide in a hill in front of the village; the community and the criminals are only divided by the water of the El Caracol dam, every day, from 10:00 am, the hitmen start shooting in the air as if they were called to mass, from that moment the tension is in the air, because the villagers know that it is the prelude to the drone attacks.

Families struggle to protect each other 

Acatlán del Río lives mainly from fishing thanks to the El Caracol hydroelectric plant, but today the fishermen cannot work because as soon as they set foot in the water they are attacked with bullets from the hill across the street; MILENIO was able to confirm this.

Schools without classes; they have already lost one class

The problem is worsening in Acatlán del Río, because the children and young people have already missed the last school year and there is concern that they will miss the current one.

"Since about 15 days ago the bomb fell and damaged the roof of the elementary school and since that day, well actually since before, since all this started, the teachers did not want to teach. I don't know exactly what day, but since February the children stopped having classes: the high school and elementary school children, they all asked to change, they didn't want to be here anymore", said a woman.

Today the school looks abandoned, with damages in the walls and ceilings, due to the explosions of the projectiles launched from drones, in the patio where there should have been children playing, today there are splinters of the explosive devices.

The facades are full of gunshots

"The rooms are abandoned, no authority has been present, neither state, municipal nor federal," denounced another inhabitant.

The health center has been closed for two years because the doctors also fled the violence.

When MILENIO went to Acatlán del Río, the community had already been without electricity for 9 days, after armed men damaged a transformer that had just been repaired by the Federal Electricity Commission.

Food is becoming scarce as the days go by, and no company wants to stop there, as they fear that their employees may be the target of an attack.

Acatlán del Río is not the only town that lives under the yoke of La Familia Michoacana, at least 10 towns in the municipality of Heliodoro Castillo suffer the same situation, among them La Lagunita, El Querengue, Texocotla, El Corral Grande, Santa María and Tichapa.

A 90-year-old man, a farmer by profession, originally from Lagunita, said that two months ago, the 25 families living in his community fled because of threats from organized crime. He recalled that on that day, before sunrise, they boarded a boat and left, abandoning everything.

Another woman also said that people are fleeing from the bombs: "if they don't send us government, they should send us weapons and everything we need to defend ourselves," she said.

Milenio