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The Argentine government deployed the first police reinforcements on March 8 to combat drug trafficking in the city of Rosario, 300 km north of Buenos Aires, in reaction to recent episodes of violence that claimed the life of a child in a shootout.
With our correspondent in Buenos Aires Juan Buchet and the AFP.
With the arrival of a first contingent of gendarmes and members of the Federal Police, the plan to fight organized crime in Rosario began this Wednesday, announced by President Alberto Fernández. In total, there will be 400 members of the federal forces that will be added to the 1,000 already present in the city of Santa Fe.
The plan is completed with the dispatch of state-of-the-art security cameras, a reinforcement of the prison system to prevent criminals from continuing to operate from their cells, and the upcoming arrival of a company of engineers from the Armed Forces, who will participate in security tasks. urbanization in popular neighborhoods controlled by drug traffickers. The National Defense Law does not authorize the intervention of the Army in tasks of internal security.
New episodes of violence
Fernández’s decisions mark a shift from recent statements according to which he had already done a lot to fight crime in Rosario. But the pressure on the national government was increasing due to the repercussion of the alleged drug threat to Lionel Messi, to which new deaths were added.
Indeed, the third Argentine city by number of inhabitants (1.3 million) attracted international attention last week when two unknown men on a motorcycle shot at a supermarket belonging to the family of the wife of soccer star Lionel Messi and left a threatening message. .
Likewise, there were moments of anxiety on Sunday with the death of an 11-year-old boy in the middle of a shootout between drug traffickers, in a suburban neighborhood. Images of serious incidents impacted public opinion, when relatives and neighbors of the child looted and burned down the houses of those allegedly responsible for the crime. The drug gangs sent through social networks threats to shoot “bullets for everyone” in retaliation.
According to experts, much more will be needed to reverse the situation in a city in which drug trafficking has progressively penetrated the police, the judiciary and politics in recent years. Rosario is the city with the highest crime rate in Argentina, with a rate of 22 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, five times more than the national average.
