(12 Jun 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Yajalón, Mexico - 11 June 2024
1. Various of internally displaced people inside makeshift shelter
2. Food distribution outside shelter
3. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Arturo Sánchez, internally displaced person: ++STARTS ON SHOT 1 AND PARTIALLY OVERLAID BY SHOT 2++
"They didn't pay the criminal demands for extortion and some of them who had paid also had their houses burned down. In my case, they have tried to extort me by phone but when I see the numbers and I don't know them, I don't answer. They have already tried to extort me, (and have asked for) 35,000 pesos, 100,000 pesos."
4. People outside makeshift shelter
5. Aerial of makeshift shelter ++ MUTE ++
STORYLINE:
More than 4,000 residents of the town of Tila in southern Mexico fled over the weekend after armed gangs shot up the town and burned many homes last week, state prosecutors said.
It was probably the biggest mass displacement in Chiapas since 1997.
Hundreds of them were staying at a makeshift shelter in a football court in the neighbouring town of Yajalón, where some residents recounted spending days trapped in their homes before army troops and state police showed up to allow them to leave.
Mexico's President Andrés Manuel López Obrador depicted the assault as "a conflict between the very same people" of the town of Tila, an apparent reference to a longstanding land dispute between farmers.
Observers said criminal gangs and political interests were behind the clash.
The Digna Ochoa Human Rights Center said a group calling itself the "Autonomos," or Autonomous Ones, was behind the violence, and said it was linked to drug trafficking.
At least two people were confirmed dead and at least 17 buildings were burned last week, according to state prosecutors.
The gangs had also been blamed for extorting residents even to receive basic services like power and water.
López Obrador said food was being supplied to the camps.
He claimed "things have calmed down," and said the government now wanted to start negotiations with the groups "to reach an agreement so that people can return to their communities."
But some of the residents from Tila have told The Associated Press they do not feel safe to return.
AP video shot by: Raúl Mendoza
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