Nine indigenous Mixe residents at the politically divided Oaxaca municipality of Santiago Choápam were killed and some 20 wounded when they were ambushed on a mountain road on their way to a election rally.
Rescue crews recovered the last of 14 bodies from the Pozo 3 coal mine hit by a gas explosion in Mexico’s northern Coahuila state, which labor leaders charge was operating “outside of the law.”
As momentum builds for the May 8 protest against violence and impunity in Mexico, the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) announced its support for the movement started by poet Javier Sicilia.
As nearly 300 bodies were unearthed from clandestine graves in the northern Mexican states of Durango and Tamaulipas, human rights activists were accosted by naval troops in the military-occupied border city of Matamoros.
The Mexican state of Tamaulipas has dismissed its security chief while federal police arrested 16 municipal officers in the town of San Fernando following the discovery of more than 145 bodies in mass graves over the past weeks.
Thousands marched across Mexico to call for an end to drug-related violence after the slaying of the son of poet Javier Sicilia. The elder Sicilia issued a statement blasting both “politicians” and “criminals” for the atrocities.
Activists occupied the Mexican consulate in New York City to demand freedom for five indigenous Zapatista supporters in Chiapas they say were framed for defending their lands from “eco-tourism” developers.
Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission finds that 5,397 are reported missing across the country since President Felipe Calderón launched his war on the narco cartels in 2006.
In violence-torn Ciudad Juárez, the mayor has appointed a new security czar—Lt. Col. Julian Leyzaola Perez, a veteran of counterinsurgency operations in Mexico’s south, who is viewed ominously by human rights groups.
On International Women’s Day, many human rights defenders were absent from Ciudad Juárez, following a wave of violence in which leaders have been assassinated and forced into exile.
Activists have identified 10 “zones of extermination” in Ciudad Juárez, where “youthcide” is carried out with impunity—despite warnings from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
Mexican federal police announced the capture of “El Papirrin,” leader of “La Resistencia”—an alliance of cartels formed to resist the drive by Los Zetas to dominate Mexico’s narco networks.
