Mexico’s National Guard is securing stores and shopping centers in Acapulco in the aftermath of Hurricane Otis in an attempt to stop widespread looting.
The looting and a rise in home burglaries comes as Mexico’s government has been slow to provide aid and any sort of rescue operations in the once-booming tourist hotspot of Acapulco.
In some cases, members of the National Guard have been the ones doing the looting.
On Wednesday, the Category 5 hurricane made landfall, bringing widespread destruction to the popular tourist destination. While Mexico’s federal government has only acknowledged 27 fatalities from the storm, journalists and emergency personnel claim that the real figure is much higher and that government officials have been slow to collect the bodies of the victims. Many of the victims are reported to still lying in the streets.
During the week, Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador tried to personally visit Acapulco to look at the damages. The Mexican president chose to travel by land in a military jeep rather than fly in a helicopter. The visit became the butt of many jokes since Lopez Obrador’s vehicle got stuck in the mud and was unable to continue the journey to Acapulco. His media team tried to salvage the situation by having him walk in the mud near the Jeep for photo ops.
Lopez Obrador has been harshly criticized for his slow response to the storm and for ordering that all aid flowing into Acapulco go through the Mexican Army.
The order has kept private entities and NGO’s from being able to send supplies and aid to the storm-ravaged region. The move to have the Mexican Army take control over all of the aid going into Acapulco earned much criticism nationwide. Former Mexican President Vicente Fox sent out an expletive-laden tweet condemning the action since innocents were suffering while Lopez Obrador tried to use the storm for political gain.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.