Mexico: five bodies found in the northwest, 150 dead in one month

Five bodies were found Thursday evening in Culiacan in northwestern Mexico, authorities in the state of Sinaloa said on Friday, where the armed conflict within the cartel of the same name has left 150 dead in a month.

The bodies were found shirtless shortly before midnight on a main avenue in Culiacan, the Sinaloa State Security Department said in a statement.

The armed conflict between two factions of the Sinaloa cartel, one of the most powerful narco-organizations in Mexico and the world, broke out on September 9.

Culiacan and its surrounding areas have since recorded some 150 assassinations, according to figures from the local prosecutor’s office. The conflict also involves Culiacán municipal police officers, the Sinaloa state government acknowledged.

Internal struggle

This spiral of violence is attributed to a struggle between the sons of drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán and the relatives of another co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.

“El Chapo”, in his time drug trafficker public enemy number one, is serving a life sentence in a high security prison in Colorado in the southern United States.

Zambada, 76, was arrested on July 25 in the southern United States, where he landed by plane with one of Chapo’s sons. The drug trafficking veteran accuses Guzman Junior of having kidnapped him and handed him over to American justice.

Mexico’s ex-president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, accused the United States of being responsible for the violence in Sinaloa, with its unilateral decision to act to stop Zambada. The US ambassador refuted these accusations.

Invested on Tuesday, the new president of Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum must present her national security plan on Tuesday.

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AFP

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