In southern Mexico, a toxic mix of gangs, vigilantes and cartels is fuelling rising violence. ‘Community police’ or ‘self-defence’ groups, often accused of having ties with drug cartels, have proliferated and extended their control over the territory. And time after time, outnumbered soldiers do not intervene
A FUPCEG vigilante vehicle bears the slogan: “They could see me dead, but never surrendering nor humiliated”, at the group’s base in Filo de Caballos
A shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe is decorated with a Mexican flag on the road leading to Filo de Caballos. Driving the back roads of Guerrero means passing dozens of roadblocks manned by men in civilian clothes with assault rifles.
Top: clothes pegs hang on a line on the roof of a home whose residents fled after heavy fighting in Filo de Caballos. Above: displaced children rest inside an unfinished home in Chichihualco where they have taken refuge after FUPCEG vigilantes took over their towns.
Students pass FUPCEG vigilantes outside the group’s base in Filo de Caballos.
Left: FUPCEG vigilantes drive past the bullet hole-riddled gate to a home where heavy fighting took place in Filo de Caballos. Right: A local leader waits to meet Salvador Alanis, a FUPCEG strategist and spokesman, inside the group’s base shattered by gunfire in Filo de Caballos.
A FUPCEG vigilante on patrol in Filo de Caballos.
FUPCEG vigilantes on the streets of Xaltianguis.
Daniel Adame, the local FUPCEG leader, displays weapons that he says civilians have been obliged to take up to defend themselves, as his son and bodyguard stands behind him at the force’s base in Xaltianguis.
A UPOEG mural at a blocked-off town entrance in Buenavista reads: “They took so much from us that we lost our fear.”
Top: UPOEG’s Comandante Geronimo talks about the force’s struggle to protect Buenavista from cartels and other vigilante groups. Above: UPOEG members solicit change from drivers at a roadblock in Buenavista.
Salvador Alanis, a FUPCEG strategist and spokesman, in Filo de Caballos.
Left: FUPCEG vigilantes enter a home whose occupants fled after heavy fighting in Filo de Caballos. Right: a FUPCEG vigilante stands guard outside the group’s base in Filo de Caballos.
Military police wear GN armbands, the insignia of the new National Guard.
Top: children play on the quiet main street in Filo de Caballo. Above: A woman works in a shop in Filo de Caballos. Residents estimate that about half the town’s population fled after violent clashes and a takeover by FUPCEG vigilantes.
David Barragan, who fled FUPCEG vigilantes, gets by by manning over a government-operated tollbooth on the road leading out of Mexico City towards Guerrero, charging motorists about half the toll and keeping the money.
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A statuette of Jesus stands in an abandoned home taken over by FUPCEG vigilantes in Chichihualco.
