On Sunday, a 12-year-old boy was killed in Cancun, Mexico, after gunmen on jet skis began firing at a rival drug dealer on a beach. According to reports, the boy was a local resident who had been lying on a lounge chair on the beach alongside his family before stray bullets hit him in the shooting. The boy was reportedly rushed to the hospital, where he died of his injuries.
Authorities believe the intended target of the attack was a rival drug dealer, where there was an ongoing dispute over drug sales. Narcotics-related disputes have claimed the lives of several tourists in Mexico’s coastal vacation communities over the last few years as the never-ending battle for drug turf wages south of the United States border.
In 2022, two Canadians were killed in Playa del Carmen, another tourist destination south of Cancun, when two gangs engaged in a conflict over debts. Moreover, two international tourists, one of whom was a California-based vlogger, were killed when caught in the middle of the crossfire of an intense gunfight that resulted from a drug-related dispute.
On Monday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador addressed the violent gangs in his country during a daily press briefing. The president claimed that he “trusts” the drug cartels would cease their violent attacks on each other, suggesting that they “know” that they accomplish “nothing with confrontations.”
“Those who are engaged in these illegal activities know they resolve nothing with confrontations,” López Obrador said. He continued stating “they would go out and risk the lives of other human beings, and why make families suffer?” The president added, “I trust that there will be no confrontations.” Reportedly, the Mexican army sent reinforcements of roughly 200 elite soldiers to the State of Sinaloa to discourage conflict.
Over the past several years, Lopez Obrador has attempted to call for peace among the gangs and cartels that reside in Mexico. In 2021, the president seemingly praised the criminal organizations for their conduct surrounding the elections, as there were only a “few acts of violence,” even suggesting that white-collar crime was a bigger problem.
“People who belong to organized crime behaved very well, in general, there were few acts of violence by these groups,” the president said in 2021. “I think the white-collar criminals acted worse.” However, reports indicate that up to sixty politicians have been assassinated during pre-campaign and campaign periods so far in 2024.
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The American Tribune reported on comments from Lopez Obrador earlier this year, where he warned that the “flow of migrants will continue” into the United States if America does not meet the demand for foreign aid throughout Latin America. Untold millions of illegal immigrants have poured into the United States in light of the Biden-Harris’ inability to secure the border.
When asked if Mexico had the power to prevent continual mass migration into the United States, Lopez Obrador said, “We do, and want to continue doing it. But we do want for the root causes to be attended to, for them to be seriously looked at.” However, addressing his demands to the U.S. for foreign aid, he said, “If they don’t do the things that you’ve said need to be done, then what? The flow of migrants will continue.”
Watch former Border Patrol Chief Ortiz slam Kamala’s record on the border here:
Featured image credit: Keith Pomakis, CC BY-SA 2.5 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5>, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cancun_Beach.jpg