Expelled by violence, more than 7 thousand people at the end of 2021

Carolina Gomez Mena

Newspaper La Jornada
Saturday, February 5, 2022, p. eleven

The Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights (CMDPDH) stated that in terms of massive internal displacement caused by violence, the figures recorded in 2021 are the highest we have documented since 2016.

In the document Situation of forced internal displacement in Mexico, it indicates that in 2020 there were 24 events of massive internal displacement caused by violence and 9 thousand 741 displaced people.

It highlights that, in this worrying scenario, it is urgent the immediate intervention of the three levels of government to prevent new displacements, attend to the displaced population and find lasting solutions to their situation.

In the report, which focuses on November and December 2021, it establishes that during those months there were at least seven events of massive internal displacement caused by violence in Mexico, which displaced an estimated 7,031 people in the states of Chiapas, Chihuahua, Guerrero, Michoacán and Zacatecas.

He details that in November there was new armed attacks on Tsotzil indigenous communities in the municipality of Aldama, Chiapas, which forced some 3,000 people to displace and around 31 families were expelled from rural communities in the municipality of Valparaíso, in Zacatecas, located in the border region with the states of Jalisco and Durango.”

It refers that since mid-2021 the region has been the scene of armed clashes between rival criminal groups and adds that clashes between criminal groups have also been the reason for the displacement of about 20 families from Huitzuco de los Figueroa, in Guerrero.

At the beginning of December, a new massive displacement was registered due to the violence in the municipality of Valparaíso, Zacatecas, (there were about) 150 families, around 700 people”.

He also stated that the violence of the cartels and the confrontations between them and the public security forces have generated massive displacements in the municipality of Cuinicuila, Michoacán.