Thirty-Two Dead in Mexico Due to Drug Trafficking Violence in Sinaloa

The violence in Sinaloa, a state in northwestern Mexico where drug traffickers have been fighting for a week following the capture of the cartel's co-founder, Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, has left 32 dead and 30 detained, the army announced today.

The Mexican Secretary of National Defense, General Luis Cresencio Sandoval, indicated at the government's morning conference that 2,200 armed forces personnel will be deployed to stop the violence in Sinaloa, where 13 attacks have been recorded, nine on the Army and four on the National Guard.

"We have two dead military personnel, a soldier and a sergeant, and we also have nine soldiers and a civilian injured. We have 30 detainees from criminal organizations and 30 civilians have also been killed, 22 of them in the city of Culiacán (capital of Sinaloa)," the general said.

The Sinaloa state attorney general's office had announced a cumulative number of 33 murders on Sunday, but Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador had previously suggested that not all of the murders were related to this drug trafficking conflict.

The Army Chief of Staff has now argued that there was no evidence of a power struggle in the first five weeks after the capture of Zambada, co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel, and Joaquín Guzmán López, one of the sons of Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán, who handed 'El Mayo' over to the United States on July 25, according to the official version.

But the situation changed in September, when a public conflict broke out between the Los Chapitos and Los Mayos factions, the general said, without providing details on the identities of those detained.

"There are measures that are being adopted as of this weekend, such as the increase in the activities of the secret services, in coordination with the National Intelligence Center, to act against the leaders generating violence, and also with the Attorney General's Office, to issue arrest warrants," he said.

The Armed Forces have 50 land vehicles, six aircraft and five attack helicopters in Sinaloa.

In addition, they confiscated 115 long weapons, 14 small arms, two grenades and 14 armoured vehicles, among other military equipment.

The controversy over the government's response intensified on Monday, when the commander of the Third Military Region, Jesús Leana Ojeda, said at a press conference in Sinaloa that the end of the violence "does not depend" on the Armed Forces, but rather "on the antagonistic groups, who stop confronting each other".

When asked about these statements, the President of the Republic, López Obrador, asked the media "not to act with sensationalism", assuring that the Army is seeking to "protect the population".

"That is the first thing, that the people of Sinaloa have confidence that we are there and will continue to be there for as long as necessary to protect them and take care of them. And the second thing is also, as part of that first task, to avoid confrontation between the groups," he stressed.