Rival criminal groups target civilians in Chiapas, Mexico

The escalating violence in the southern Mexican border state of Chiapas has caused the number of displaced and missing people to rise to a new high. Thousands of residents have been driven from their homes and organized crime gangs are increasingly targeting civilians.

According to data from a human rights organization accessed by InSight Crime, there were 12,771 victims of displacement in Chiapas in the first seven months of 2024. This is a significant increase from the 4,562 victims recorded in all of 2023.

In recent days, criminal groups in the border municipality of Chicomuselo have used drones to drop explosives on homes, displacing 400 people. A courthouse and even a military base have also been attacked.

SEE ALSO:What is behind the raging criminal conflict in Chiapas, Mexico?

In July, 580 Mexicans fled the nearby municipality of Amatenango de la Frontera and crossed the border into Guatemala, Guatemalan authorities said. The incident was a rare example of migrants from Mexico heading south toward Central America to escape violence, rather than the other way around, as is the norm.

In several communities, armed men rounded up residents and forced them to participate in blockades of key roads to make it more difficult for rival criminal gangs and security forces to advance.

Criminal groups “have started using the civilian population as a human shield,” a human rights activist, who asked not to be identified for security reasons, told InSight Crime. “In some cases they are threatening [residents] and force them to stay and work together.”

The Mexican military sent 200 soldiers to Chiapas on August 16, but this move did little to curb the violence.

InSight Crime Analysis

Chiapas has long been a hotbed of criminal violence between groups competing for control of areas along Mexico's southern border, a major transit point for drugs and migrants.

But since 2021, violence there has risen sharply, coinciding with the incursion of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG) into border communities that were once strongholds of the rival Sinaloa Cartel, according to internal Mexican army reports.

The involvement of larger and more powerful criminal networks has also fuelled conflict between the various local armed groups operating in the region.

“Paramilitary groups that were formed in the 1990s to combat local insurgencies have never disbanded,” the human rights activist said. “Cartels are now allying themselves with these smaller local groups.”

To keep the fighting going, criminal groups turn to civilians to support or join their criminal armies. Those who refuse are met with violence. In May, gunmen killed 11 people, including two religious leaders, in a massacre in Nuevo Morelia, a hamlet in Chicomuselo. The victims had called for peace and refused to support either of the two criminal groups fighting in the region, according to the human rights activist interviewed by InSight Crime.

“The civilian population has been effectively taken hostage,” the human rights activist said. “They are forced to work with criminal groups.” He added that there were cases where civilians “wanted to be expelled” to avoid forced recruitment, but were told they would be killed if they left.

A report published in February 2024 by a group of human rights organizations documented how organized crime not only forced thousands of civilians to commit acts of violence, but also increasingly recruited skilled workers such as “electricians, turners and plumbers” to assist them in their everyday criminal activities.

An increase in the number of missing persons is also contributing to the spread of terror. Between 2019 and 2023, the number of missing persons reported in Chiapas tripled, according to the National Search Commission (Comisión Nacional de Búsqueda), an upward trend that shows no signs of slowing down.

SEE ALSO:Chiapas bleeds as CJNG and Sinaloa cartel fight over smuggling routes in Guatemala

Residents regularly tell local reporters that the presence of security forces does little to combat organized crime. Instead, several communities have formed self-defense groups to fight off criminal organizations.

“When criminal groups come to certain areas, the population does not even think about turning to the authorities,” Carlos Juárez, director of the Institute of Economy and Peace in Mexico, told InSight Crime. “Governments are not an option for them to protect themselves.”

There is widespread distrust of security forces in Chiapas, which have been implicated in human rights abuses in the past, particularly against the state's large indigenous population. In the 1990s, the Mexican government deployed the military and armed paramilitary groups to crush an uprising by the Zapatistas, an armed group fighting for better living conditions and autonomy for indigenous peoples. The legacy of that conflict still lingers today.

The human rights activist said he felt that state security forces were “complicit” in the terror perpetrated in certain communities and silencing the population. If people had the confidence to report crime and violence to the authorities, the security crisis in Chiapas would almost certainly look even worse, they added.