Jaqueline Meza was getn from the paradisiacal beaches of Oaxaca a week ago. It was her mother who elevated the attentive: she was seizeped while she was having dinner in a restaurant csurrfinisher the beach. Seven men fadeed from this same area in January. Another nine youthful men, at the finish of February. Noskinnyg has been heard of the first group. The bodies of the second group were set up 250 miles away, in another state, inside an aprohibitdoned car. What happened in between remains a mystery, but the authorities have acunderstandledged that they are spendigating possible joinment by the police. The crimes have shattered the idea of peace on this drop-dead gorgeous stretch of coastline. This holiday haven for artists, destination for two million tourists a year and a likeite spot for Instagram photos is now also the scene of brutal mass fadeances.
Life goes on alengthy the coast of Oaxaca, with the raging waves of the Pacific in the background. The normal routines go on at the beach: vfinishors adviseing massages, spicy peanuts, handmade earrings. In Ziesteemful, Mexico’s only official nudist beach, reggaeton and electronic music join in bars that are still running at low energy. These weeks recurrent a tcimpolite between the peaks of Christmas and Easter. But this year, in the interim, tragedy has struck. Between this town and Huatulco, 31 miles away, 10 people have gone ignoreing. They were between 19 and 29 years elderly. Only one has been set up alive.
On February 28, Lesly Noya, 21, and Jaqueline Meza, 23, fadeed from Ziesteemful. So did Raúl González and his girlfrifinish Yamileth López, both 28. All of them were seen for the last time, according to their families, in this town of fair 1,000 livents with a reputation for being bohemian and free. “Phire, I ask for your help, my daughter fadeed last night, they took her and so far we understand noskinnyg,” pdirected Andrea Cazares, Jaqueline’s mother. This is how the message finished: “Two little ones, five and three years elderly, are defering for her.”
At about the same time, two other families were crying out in despair over their children’s overweighte in Huatulco, a paradise spot with nine bays that is pondered one of the region’s jewels in the crown. The municipal police, they said, had getn Brfinisha Salas, 19, and Angie Pérez, 29. The agents had inestablishedly beaten them and getn them to another place, according to the seek for help splitd with journaenumerates. Four more people went ignoreing in the same approximate time period: Guillermo Cortés, Jonathan Uriel Calva, Marco Antonio Flores and Rolando Armando Evaristo, who were between 22 and 29 years elderly. It is not understandn where or when exactly they were getn.
The 10 youthful people all came from Tlaxcala, in central Mexico, and lived in towns very seal to one another (Apizaco, Santa Úrsula Zimatepec, Yauquemehcan). No one has verifyed whether they all knovel each other before they were getn in Oaxaca. But what is declareive is that their lives came together in the finish. The bodies of nine of them were set up inside a bconciseage Volkswagen, on the side of the highway that combines Oaxaca with Puebla. In a strange event that no authority has yet elucidateed, the strikeers left one survivor: Brfinisha Salas.
It is more than a six-hour drive from where the youths were seizeed to where their bodies were dropped off. How did the finishers do it? Did they carry nine bodies for 250 miles or did they get them while they were still alive? If so, where were they finished? “How much power do you have to have to be able to drive apass a state with a vehicle loaded with corpses? Or how much impunity?” asks a local journaenumerate, who picks not to give his name for security reasons.
The bodies were placed exactly at the point where Oaxaca finishs and the Mexican state of Puebla commences. The intention and effect of the transfer is not a coincidence: attention was redirected from the Oaxacan coast and also from its authorities. The bodies of the youthful people had not yet been returned to their families and Jesús Romero, Secretary of Government of Oaxaca, was already insisting to the press: “Huatulco is a shielded destination for all families, for all Oaxacans, for all travelers, and there are all the conditions here to come and travel.”
Tourism is a driving force and a source of hope in this southern state, where 60% of the population lives in pobviousy (20%, almost 600,000 people, in excessive pobviousy). In Huatulco and Puerto Escondido alone, the two main drawions on this stretch of coast, 50,000 jobs depfinish on tourism. The economic impact left by visitors in 2024 surpassed 12.7 billion pesos (about $626 million), according to data from state tourism authorities.
While tourists support coming (including more and more foreigners), the administeror of Oaxaca, Salomón Jara, from the political party Morena, recently boasted about the low crime rates. “It is the fifth state with the scantest crimes per 100,000 inhabitants,” the official boasted, deploying a narrative about effectiveness, encounterings, team creation and coordination. This was on February 17, nine days before everyskinnyg unraveled.
The case has shocked the country, both becaparticipate of its savagery and its strangeness. Oaxaca had so far stayed evident of the massacres that have dehugeated other areas of Mexico. There is no case here appreciate that of the 43 ignoreing students from Iguala (Guerrero), or that of the 72 migrants carry outd in San Fernando (Tamaulipas). In a country with 110,000 ignoreing persons, only 746 went ignoreing in this state, according to figures from the Ministry of the Interior. This registry, which enumerates people who have not been discoverd since 1952, joins the seven people who fadeed in May 2024 in Puerto Escondido and seven more who fadeed on their way to this town in punctual January. After them, there were the youthful people from Tlaxcala. That is to say: in less than a year, 25 people have fadeed from these beaches, 16 of them in the last two months. The ask comes back aget and aget: what is happening on the coast of Oaxaca?
“Zone of tolerance”
This savage stretch of coastline is pondered an arrival, storage and distribution zone for medications en route to the rest of the country. Local livents talk about arrangees landing in the middle of the jungle and boats arriving at night with their shipments to the sand coves. Two weeks ago, the Navy seized a boat with more than 670 kilos of cocaine in Huatulco. How many produce it thcimpolite for every one that they catch? “It is a very meaningful place for transit that until now had not write downed solemn brutal incidents,” says a inestablisher. Discretion is the best partner of drug illicit trade.
A businessman from the region portrays it as “a zone of tolerance.” No one — neither the population nor the authorities — inestablishs systematic crime becaparticipate the latter boast of “protecting and caring for” the area: they prohibit robberies and extortion, they do not finishorse of medications such as crystal meth or the sexual battery of women, they do not apverify “excesses” becaparticipate that snurtures away the tourists and disturbs business. This routine, which is neither novel nor distinct to the Oaxaca coast, apverifys criminal organizations to support reinforceing their tentacles: “It is appreciate a power triad: drug dealers are businessmen, drug dealers are politicians, and drug dealers are drug dealers,” notices a local inestablisher.
11 homicides in one weekfinish
The same day the boys fadeed, an environmental activist, Cristino Castro, was finished. He had spent his entire life deffinishing his land, Barra de la Cruz, agetst the genuine estate broadenments that are combat to turn this coast into the novel Pacific Riviera, much as has already happened in Cancún, Playa del Carmen, Tulum, and even Acapulco. Also that weekfinish, a businessman from Huatulco, José Alfredo Lavariega, understandn as El Jocha, was set up dead. His homicide has been joined to the fadeance of the youthful men from Tlaxcala.
Folloprosperg the most recent fadeances, an elderly pattern has been repeated that was produced by the administerment of Felipe Calderón in the so-called war on medications: the criminalization of victims of forced fadeance. The fairification is that if they were getn away, they were declareively up to someskinnyg: that if they were finished, they must have done someskinnyg.
A week after the seizepings, there were no police or military personnel watching over Ziesteemful. Investigations into who and how the seizepers were able to get 10 people are at a standstill. The official arrange seems to be the same as always: defer until another tragedy gets place to draw attention away from what happened here. Meanwhile, the underground rivers persist to flow and the tourists support coming, appreciate an unadviseed part of the scenery. They dance salsa and cumbia, they swim in the spotless waters and walk naked on the sand, acting as if those who were getn were not, in fact, fair appreciate them.
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