The Latin American Report # 553

The peak of violence experienced last week in Ecuador's Manabí province, which I covered here, somehow led me to revisit the security crisis in Sinaloa. The latter erupted shortly after the alleged betrayal of the historical Sinaloa Cartel co-leader, known as "El Mayo," by a son of his former partner, "El Chapo" Guzmán. I generally source the events reflected in this daily news project from major wire services like AP, Reuters, and EFE, occasionally turning to national media to cross-check or seek additional information. Since a few news stories from Culiacán crossed over to the international press this year, I assumed the conflict had cooled down somewhat. However, the truth is it has been there, bleeding, all this time.

For instance, as I understand from this report by the Mexican digital media outlet Noroeste, Sinaloa hasn't seen a month as violent as the past June since 2006, with a staggering 241 homicides tallied. The state now holds the grim record for being the one with the highest number of intentional homicides in a single day, at least since this data began to be officially recorded nationwide in 2018, after a total of 30 homicides were counted there on June 30.

So, early yesterday, four men were shot to death under a boulevard bridge in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Culiacán. Noroeste states that they were all relatives of alias "El Tito," who was killed during a brawl in the Goros II prison, where he was incarcerated after being arrested last December in an operation that seized 1,500 fentanyl pills from him. Beside these four bodies, authorities also recovered a fifth body, found in a plastic bag inside a container.

At night, a 49-year-old man was fatally shot inside his home in Culiacán, while earlier that day two men had been killed in separate incidents--the first was found lying face up on the banks of a canal, with multiple gunshot wounds, while the second was killed by gunmen who attacked him from a vehicle while he was riding a motorcycle.

Just in the first half of this year, three more minors have already been killed, often by stray bullets, than in the entirety of 2024, although 75% of the latter are included in this so-called Third Culiacanazo. Earlier this month, a minor lost his life trying to flee an armed home invasion, and to date, seven more minors have been reported killed throughout Sinaloa. In some events, there are signs that the minors, often teenagers, were involved with organized crime, like in the case of a 16-year-old whose body was found with signs of violence in an area known as Loma de Rodriguera. Abraham, aged 15, died alongside his father during a pursuit, but it remains unclear if he was also targeted.

_Source

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