Over the weekend the Mexican beach resort Town of Acapulco Guerrero turned into a war zone as convoys carrying cartel gunmen clashed with police and military forces. Mexican authorities have released minimal details in an attempt to downplay the violence, however, residents and tourists have taken to social media posting videos and photographs of the raging gun battle.
In one of the videos uploaded to YouTube.com, a young woman is heard screaming hysterically as gunshots go off all around her.
Another video shows the intensity of the gun battle in one of the city’s main avenues that is usually filled with tourists.
According to Mexico’s Proceso Magazine, the violence was due to two coordinated attacks at local hotels where Mexican Federal Police officers stay while stationed there. The attacks set off a series of chases and firefights across the city.
The latest episode in the war over trafficking routes and drug production territories comes as Guerrero’s Governor Hector Astudillo continues to minimize the chaos. Astudillo is the same Mexican politician that as Breitbart Texas reported, asked news outlets to stop publishing stories about cartel violence in his state because they are scaring away tourists. The clergy from Guerrero has also called for a government dialogue with drug lords in order to end the violence.
Historically, Acapulco, Guerrero has been a tourism hub visited by tens of thousands of beach-going tourists each year. In recent years, the state of Guerrero has been the scene of fierce cartel firefights and mounting executions as rival criminal organizations continue to fight for control.
Guerrero is the same state where as Breitbart Texas previously reported, 43 education students from the rural community of Ayotzinapa were kidnapped by police forces and turned over to cartel members who are believed to have butchered them and incinerated their remains. Most recently an international independent group of forensic analyst accused the Mexican government of systemically trying to interfere or manipulate evidence in the investigation in order to feed a false narrative of events.
In late 2014, protesters took to the streets to demand answers about the students murders. The rising violence tied to those protests and the lack of security conditions in general prompted the U.S. Embassy in Mexico to issue a travel warning, Breitbart Texas previously reported.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.