Mexico City, Mexico — The Guatemalan government has increased measures to reinforce the border with Mexico following drug cartel violence that has forced hundreds of Mexicans to flee south of the border into Guatemala.
The southeast of Mexico has become a battleground for criminal groups determined to control the flow of drugs, weapons, and people in the region, where Chiapas, a state located at the edge of Mexico and bordering Guatemala, has witnessed worsening violence in recent years.
However, while the Guatemalan government has redoubled efforts to protect its people from the violence concentrated north of the border, the Mexican government led by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has downplayed the violence reported in the south.
On August 13, Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo announced increased security checkpoints along the Guatemalan border after an unexpected surge of Mexican migrants coming into the state.
“We are working on our side with the Ministry of Defense and the National Civil Police to prevent violence from reaching Guatemalan territory,” he said during a press conference.
On July 23, Guatemalan authorities reported a major influx of Mexican migrants coming in from Chiapas.
While reports on the figures of Mexican nationals migrating into Guatemala have been conflicting, with President Arévalo reporting 300 people while Guatemala’s National Defense reporting 180 and Guatemalan Disaster Reduction body documenting 580, officials have disclosed that up to 207 Mexicans have been granted humanitarian asylum.
Meanwhile, on August 14, President López Obrador said that “about 200 people have crossed the border,” most of them from Amatenango, a municipality bordering Guatemala.
During the press conference, López Obrador dismissed the situation in Chiapas following the reports of displacement caused by violence, claiming to have “another vision” and “other data.”
“I have a different vision, and I also have other information. Or, to put it colloquially, I have other data. We are dealing with the problem in Chiapas as in the whole country,” he said.
Although the president assures that Chiapas is the state with the greatest poverty reduction, with 10% less than that recorded in 2018, it has also been subject to increasing violence derived from the war between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Cartel – New Generation.
