Sunday 21 February 2016

Heating up the plaza in Sinaloa

In the middle of the night on February 13, in the municipality of San Ignacio, Sinaloa, near the border with Durango, 13 people – eight men and five women – were gunned down. An additional three gunmen were killed in a shootout between armed groups on February 16 in Maloya, near Rosario, south of Mazatlán.
Shrine to Santa Muerte, near Sinaloa-Durango
border, southern Sinaloa.

Then, another five people were shot to death on February 21 in a bar in La Cruz de Elota, a town on the old Mazatlán - Culiacán highway – including a federal police officer, who died after he was transferred to a hospital in Mazatlán. The violence occurred during a concert at La Trova bar by the band Enigma Norteño. This may be a matter of “drunken idiots with guns”, and not cartel related, but it looks like people showed up for a fight.

Which is to say, things appear to be heating up in Sinaloa, particularly in the southern part of the state, which is no stranger to mass killings.