Recommended
Chanting slogans such as "We want peace!" and "I am tired of living in fear," thousands of people marched on Sunday in Sinaloa to demand an end to the deaths of innocent people caused by the war between two rival factions of that Mexican cartel.
Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán and Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada founded the dreaded Sinaloa Cartel in the late 1980s, which they led together until the former's capture in 2016.
Extradited to the United States a year later, "El Chapo" saw Vicente Zambada, his partner's son, testify against him there. That betrayal led his own children to hatch a ruse that allowed them to hand "El Mayo" over to U.S. justice in July 2024.
Both are currently serving life sentences in the neighboring country.
In September 2024, a bloody war broke out between the two clans, sowing terror on the streets of Culiacán, the state capital.
Daily shootings, road blockades, closed restaurants and businesses. The violence forced schools to temporarily close, and nightlife vanished in what is considered the most dangerous city in Mexico.
In two years, there have been more than 3,000 deaths, including numerous innocent civilians caught in the crossfire.
"We don't want any more deaths like this, more murders," 62-year-old Maricela Pérez told AFP through tears. The woman brought a portrait of her 36-year-old son, Miguel, who was shot to death in May on a volleyball court, to the march.
Last week, a one-year-old baby was shot and killed while caught in the middle of an armed confrontation.
"It's terrible," said 33-year-old Marlene León.
"We feel abandoned, and we believe this march is a way to express that, even though time keeps passing, we have not normalized the violence and we want peace," she added.
- "A bloodbath" -
Dressed in white, the more than 10,000 protesters released dozens of balloons of the same color into the sky before marching to the cathedral.
They carried placards reading "I am tired of living in fear" or "Let us live free again."
The Bishop of Culiacán, Jesús José Herrera, called on the criminals to end the violence: "No territory and no ambition is worth more than a human life."
The protest was organized by the Catholic Church together with business owners and the families of missing persons.
President Claudia Sheinbaum's government has deployed thousands of soldiers to the state of Sinaloa. The leftist leader reported the presence of 15,000 troops at the end of August.
But neither this deployment nor the increasing seizures of weapons and drugs have managed to curb the violence. On Saturday alone, at least seven people were murdered.
We want the authorities to "see that our nation is agonizing, it is in a bloodbath," stated Martín Lim, a 62-year-old agricultural producer.
- Collapsed economy -
The economy of this Mexican Pacific state, with 3 million inhabitants and major corn and tomato crops, has also collapsed due to the violence.
According to official figures, the state has lost some 26,000 jobs since August 2024.
"More than 5,000 businesses closed, that is the tragedy that Sinaloa is living through," said Sergio Raúl Esquer, a businessman and state leader of the center-left opposition party Movimiento Ciudadano.
Protesters chanted slogans against President Sheinbaum, and a group burned a cardboard figure representing her.
Many associate the president with the former governor of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha Moya, a member of her Morena party whom she refuses to hand over to the United States.
In April, Washington accused him of having links to the cartel and requested his arrest for extradition purposes.
Rocha Moya denies that accusation, and Sheinbaum reiterates that U.S. justice has not presented reliable evidence against him.
However, in recent weeks, the president has increasingly distanced herself from her fellow party member.
U.S. President Donald Trump declared the Sinaloa Cartel a "foreign terrorist organization" and threatens to intervene against it on Mexican soil if Mexico's authorities do not.
[Publicidad]