Wave of violence in Mexico: at least 53 dead in Sinaloa

( Spanish) – The Sinaloa Prosecutor’s Office reported on Saturday the deaths of at least four people on September 20, bringing the death toll from violence in the Mexican state in the northwest of the country to 53 people since September 9, when there was an increase in clashes between criminal groups.

This week, Mexican President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum defended President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s policy of non-violence towards drug cartels when referring to the violence in Sinaloa, in the northwest of the country.

“The question is whether you enter into a violent confrontation with these groups. What would be provoked if you enter into a violent confrontation? Probably more violence. So that is why it is a different strategy. Maybe it is not exactly waiting for the groups to stop fighting. Just what is being done now, which is protecting the population,” said Sheinbaum.

For his part, the governor of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha Moya, assured that the security forces are not “overwhelmed.”

“Let people know that we are taking care of them. Let them take care of themselves? Of course, we are taking care of them, we are doing the task, the operation that we have between the three orders is working. These are complicated, difficult events, not unprecedented in Sinaloa, they have occurred every time relations between criminal groups break down. This is one and I am having to deal with it and we are not overwhelmed at all,” he said.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reiterated on Thursday that he had asked the United States for an explanation regarding the events that led to the arrest of Sinaloa cartel co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada on July 25, and claimed that the violence in the state was due to an alleged “agreement” between the U.S. Department of Justice and one of the organized crime groups.

“The Department of Justice was holding talks with one of the criminal groups in Sinaloa and they had agreements. They even released, or gave a different status to, one of the detainees in the United States at the same time that they took another person,” López Obrador said during his daily morning press conference.

The head of state added that this “requires an explanation because if we are now facing a situation of instability and confrontation in Sinaloa, it is because they made that decision. And we do not agree,” he said.

has requested comment from the US Department of Justice on López Obrador’s allegations.

López Obrador also referred to Zambada’s capture as “someone kidnapped through an agreement” who “is being taken to the United States,” and said that the violence in Sinaloa, which has left at least 43 dead since September 9, is due to this “special, extraordinary situation.”