The severed heads of six men were found on Thursday atop a car in a southwestern Mexico city. The car on which the lifeless heads lay was parked on a busy boulevard in the town of Chilapa de Alvarez. The dead have not yet been identified but are believed to be victims of drug gang-related violence.
Inside the car, police found plastic bags filled with human remains, most likely the bodies of the decapitated men. A sign, which was hung from two trees near the car, read: “In Chilapa, the sale of crystal (meth), kidnapping, extortion and theft is strictly prohibited. This will happen to anyone who messes around. The death penalty follows all these crimes.”
Chilapa is located in Guerrero, one of the poorest states in Mexico. In 2014, that state was the scene of the infamous kidnapping and suspected massacre of 43 students who were training to be teachers in the city of Iguala.
Intimidate rivals
Discoveries of mutilated bodies left in public or hung on bridges have increased in Mexico in recent years. Criminal gangs try to intimidate their rivals. In June 2021, two heads and other human remains were left at polling stations in the border city of Tijuana on Election Day.
More than 340,000 people have been killed across Mexico since 2006, when the government deployed the military to fight drug cartels. In 2018, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office. He pledged to pacify the country with a less confrontational approach to organized crime, which he describes as “hugs, not bullets.” That new approach hasn’t led to less bloodshed, though: 2022 is on track to close the year with the highest post-war homicide rate.
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