Photo: HERIKA MARTINEZ/AFP/Getty Images
Zacatecas and Jalisco are two Mexican states in which violence has become alarming, since every corner of both entities suffers from this situation. In addition to sharing a border, they share roads, one of them is the point where all the terror converges, since deaths and disappearances are recorded there; is about the federal highway 23 Zacatecas-Tlaltenango-Guadalajara.
And it is that although all the roads generate danger, it is the Jerez-Tepetongo section in which there are no guarantees when driving, because in recent months has concentrated the horror experienced in both statesso transiting it is a gamble, since people do not know if they will reach their destination or if they will be added to the list of disappeared or executed.
According to the site La Silla Rota, “hawks” (narco vigilantes) circulate constantly along federal highway 23, they ride motorcycles, so they can see the occupants of the vehicles, see how many there are, if they look familiar and they they give the “whistle” to the hitmen of criminal groups, who can make terrible decisions.
Disputes between criminal organizations are constant in the border area of both states, a region where all law disappears, as do some people who are collateral victims of the confrontations.
Intelligence reports from the Mexican Army indicate that the area is in dispute between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Sinaloa cartelbecause the region connects directly with Durango, Nayarit, Jalisco, San Luis Potosí and Coahuila.
Thus, the highway of terror, as this road is now known, has become a place where confrontations, drug blockades and even drug camps are part of daily life, in which citizens unrelated to conflicts usually bear the worst part. .
The authorities recognize that there is a serious problem and recommend that the population not use the road when there is no light. But for many people it is an obligatory step, either to go to the doctor or to stock up on their business, since Zacatecas is the closest city to them and they can only get there.
violent acts
La Silla Rota collected the testimony of a resident of Colotlán, Jalisco, in which he recounted the terror experienced: “First it was the paramedics (in July 2021 two paramedics who carried out the transfer of a patient from Huejuquilla, Jalisco, to Fresnillo, Zacatecas), then the drug traffickers on the highway (in June 2022, the Cardinal of Guadalajara, Francisco Robles, and the Bishop of Zacatecas, Sigfredo Noriega, denounced that they had been detained by criminals when they were driving for this region). Even the cardinal from Guadalajara affirmed that organized crime charged parishes with land rights to carry out the patron saint festivities and now the disappearances”.
The road has been in the public eye since December 25, 2022, when it was reported the disappearance of four young peoplewho were traveling on that road the last time they had communication with their families.
But it was on January 18, 2023 when the horror of said road became tangible, because their bodies were found inside a common grave and the vehicle they were traveling in was riddled with bullets.
According to data from the National Registry of Missing and Disappeared Persons, during 2022, 60 people from 11 municipalities on the border between Jalisco and Zacatecas disappeared, 54 of the cases occurred in the municipalities of Tepetongo, Monte Escobedo, Valparaíso, Susticacán and Jerez, all of them on the Zacatecas side.
You may also like:
– The four bodies found in Zacatecas belong to the young people who disappeared in December.
– Armed group murders a seminarian and a child in Zacatecas.