Tag: narco wars

Watching the Shadows
Salvador

Trump-Bukele detention deal heads for clash with courts

The Trump administration’s deportation policies took center stage this week as Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele visited the White House, courts continued challenging the legality of the deportations, and a Maryland senator travelled to El Salvador in an attempt to make contact with a man known to have been wrongfully deported. With Trump now openly defying the federal courts—and, in fact, seeking to expand indefinite detention of deportees in El Salvador’s prison system—the long-awaited showdown between the executive and judiciary appears to have arrived. (Photo: WikiMedia via Jurist)

Mexico
Tapachula

Trump-induced migration crisis in Mexico

President Donald Trump’s migration crackdown has been credited with reducing flows northward towards the United States, but it is leaving hundreds of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers trapped in a legal limbo further south, anxiously wrestling with what to do next. People on the move are now stranded in precarious living conditions across Mexico, more exposed than ever to violence, abuse and privation. (Photo of Tapachula migrant camp: Daniela Díaz for The New Humanitarian)

Mexico
Búsqueda

Demand Mexico investigate mass killing site

Human Rights Watch published a report urging Mexican authorities to conduct a “thorough” and “impartial” investigation into an apparent mass killing site outside the city of Guadalajara, in Jalisco state. A local collective called the Jalisco Search Warriors uncovered the site on an isolated ranch, where they found “bone fragments…hundreds of shoes, clothing items, charred human remains, and three underground ovens on a ranch.” The discovery was made while attempting to locate missing individuals or their remains, with local citizens organizing the effort in the absence of a sufficient response by the authorities. (Photo: Mtenaespinoza via Wikimedia Commons)

Mexico
operativo frontera norte

Mexico launches ‘Operativo Frontera Norte’

Mexico has launched a massive deployment of 10,000 troops to cities and towns on the border with the United States. Videos and photos posted on social media by Mexico’s Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA) showed military and National Guard troops lined up boarding transport planes and rows of army trucks rolling out from bases in Mexico City, Tlaxcala and other cities. The response—dubbed “Operativo Frontera Norte”—is part of an agreement reached between US President Donald Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum postponing trade tariff threats for a month. (Photo: SEDENA via Peninsula360)

The Andes
ELN

Colombia: demand truce between illegal armed groups

Human rights organizations, including the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), have urged an immediate end to violence between illegal armed groups in the northeast Colombian region of Catatumbo. WOLA joined the Colombian movement “Defendamos la Paz” in a call for armed groups in Catatumbo to suspend their conflict. In the statement, WOLA wrote: “The Ejercito Nacional de Liberación (ELN) must cease human rights violations and adopt a truce to halt armed confrontations with Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) dissidents.” The rights organizations also called on the Colombian government to provide immediate humanitarian aid for the large number of internally displaced persons in the region. WOLA urged the armed groups involved to “respect international humanitarian law and allow relief efforts to reach those in need.” (Photo: Colombia Reports)

Iran
Iran protest

Executions of women in Iran hit record high

The monitoring group Iran Human Rights reported that at least 31 women were executed in the country in 2024, which marks the highest annual toll since the group began tracking executions in the Islamic Republic 17 years ago. The report found that between 2010 and 2024, at least 241 women were executed in Iran. Approximately 70% of them were accused of killing their male partners, often in the context of an abusive marriage, including child brides. However, Iran’s judiciary does not recognize mitigating circumstances such as spousal abuse or marital rape under sharia law. Furthermore, Iran’s practice of qisas (retributive justice) allows the victim’s family to demand either execution, forgiveness or diyya (blood money). The doctrine has contributed to the surge in the execution of women. Total executions in Iran last year surpassed 900, also marking a record. (Photo of Melbourne protest in support of Iranian women: Matt Hrkac/Flickr)

Southern Cone
Paraná

Paraguay: major operation against timber trafficking

Paraguay authorities have arrested 26 suspects, dismantled two criminal networks, and identified 12 companies engaged in systematic illegal deforestation and trafficking of native tree species. The Paraguayan government, along with INTERPOL and 14 other agencies, launched Operation Panthera Onca to combat environmental crimes and the exploitation of natural resources in the Tri-Border Region where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina meet. (Photo: Ilosuna via Wikimedia Commons)

The Caribbean
Port-au-Prince

Killings continue to escalate in Haiti

New UN data shows that more than 1,200 people were killed and 522 wounded in Haiti between July and September. This represents a 27% increase in casualties compared to the second quarter. Figures could get even worse, as a new wave of coordinated gang attacks isterrorizing areas that had previously been spared. About 10,000 people were forced to flee parts of Port-au-Prince, while nearly 22,000 more were displaced in Arcahaie, north of the capital. Gangs also fired at a UN helicopter used by the World Food Program to deliver aid, while a Catholic charity’s hospital clinic was vandalized and set on fire. A new UN report projects that 5.4 million Haitians—nearly half the population—will face crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity by February 2025. Despite the ever-rising violence, the US government continues its deportation flights. (Photo: El Soberano)

Mexico
Marcelo Pérez

Indigenous pastor assassinated in Chiapas

Father Marcelo Pérez, an indigenous Tzotzil Maya priest with the Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas in Mexico’s conflicted southern state of Chiapas, was assassinated immediately after celebrating Mass. He was returning to his car from the church at the barrio of Cuxtitali in the highland city of San Cristóbal when he was shot by gunmen on a motorcycle. Hundreds of mourners attended his funeral the following day in the village of his birth, San Andrés Larráinzar, chanting “Long live Father Marcelo, priest of the poor.” He had received threats for his outspoken opposition to the criminal organizations and paramilitary groups fueling violence in Chiapas. The murder was condemned in a statement by the Mexican Bishops’ Conference, which said the act “not only deprives the community of a dedicated pastor but also silences a prophetic voice that tirelessly fought for peace with truth and justice in the region of Chiapas.” (Credit: Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas via CNA)

Africa
Chagos

UK to transfer sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

The UK announced that it will transfer sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, now ruled as the British Indian Ocean Territory, to Mauritius after more than two centuries of control. A joint statement issued by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Mauritian counterpart Pravind Jugnauth hails the accord as an “historic political agreement on the exercise of sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago.” The UK-US military base on the archipelago’s principal island of Diego Garcia will remain operational for an initial period of 99 years to ensure its continued “vital role in regional and global security.” The UK will be “authorised to exercise the sovereign rights of Mauritius” on Diego Garcia. The decision follows two years of negotiations over the future of the islands between the two nations. (Map: Republic of Mauritius)

The Andes
Ecuador

Ecuador moves toward return of foreign military bases​

Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa announced a decision to introduce a bill amending Article 5 of the constitution, to permit the establishment of foreign military bases in the country. A video Noboa posted announcing the decision was recorded at the military base in Manta, Manabí province. Established in 1999, the base had previously been leased to and operated by the United States military to combat drug trafficking. Ecuadorian activists long protested the presence of the US military. Upon taking power in 2007, left-populist president Rafael Correa—under whom the current constitution was enacted—stated that the lease would not be renewed, resulting in the US military formally leaving the Manta base in 2009. But the statement from Noboa’s office asserts: “Ecuador is facing a battle against transnational crime. This requires a strong national and international response.” (Map: PCL)

Mexico
Mexico City

Mexico: jurists strike to oppose constitutional reform

Federal judges voted to go on strike across Mexico in protest of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s pending reform of the country’s judicial system. The judges join thousands of other court employees who similarly announced an indefinite strike over the proposed constitutional changes. Under the judicial reform unveiled in February, the number of justices on the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) would be reduced from 11 to nine, and all SCJN justices as well as all judges and magistrates nationwide would be elected by popular vote. Candidates would be appointed by the three “powers” of the state: executive, judicial, and legislative. The reform would also establish a Judicial Discipline Tribunal to investigate jurists for possible corruption. The monitoring group Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) criticized the proposed reform as representing a “setback for human rights” that could consolidate power in the executive and “lead to the continuation and deepening of patterns of impunity and abuse against the population.” (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)