MEXICO CITY – A group of approximately 30 children, ages 6 to 11, joined the community police on April 11 in the José Joaquín de Herrera municipality, in the Lower Mountain of the southern Mexican state of Guerrero.
In a speech made during their presentation, the infants demanded that the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, support nine widows, 14 orphaned children and 34 displaced indigenous people from the community of Acotapaxtlán, in Guerrero, who were victims of the criminal group known as Los Ardillos.
They reproached the Mexican president for having accused them of being criminals “and we remind him again that we are not community children and we support the protection of our Nahua community,” they said.
The minors, belonging to the town of Ayahualtempa, also held a march through the main streets of their community, in the company of another group of children who had joined the police group in January 2020.
A SELF-DEFENSE GROUP FULL OF CHILDREN
This defense group also has more than 200 indigenous citizens, who denounced having been abandoned by the Mexican government due to the Los Ardillos attacks.
The Regional Coordinator of Community Authorities, of which this police group is a part, demanded solutions from the Mexican federal government for their demands and announced that if these are not met in the next few days, they will prevent the installation of polling stations in their communities during election day. June 6.
The wife of “El Chapo” Guzmán was arrested at Dulles International Airport.
The decision to integrate infants as guards in their community – the first time this action was carried out was in May 2019 – occurred after the murder of 10 indigenous musicians in an armed attack in the town of Chilapa in January 2020.
WHO ARE THE SQUIRRELS
In Chilapa, Los Ardillos maintain a war for control of the territory for purposes related to drug trafficking, which is why the violence has not stopped since in 2015 the self-styled community groups stormed the territory, leaving hundreds of deaths and forcing as many to displace from their homes.
In 2020, when the integration of the first group of minors into the community police was announced, the federal government spoke out for the respect of children’s rights and said that their participation should not be encouraged.
Guerrero is one of the poorest and most violent states in Mexico.
Self-defense groups in this state appeared in the 70s and new groups re-emerged as of 2013 with the increase in violence in the state.
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