The Mexican state of Chiapas was once a haven for Guatemalans fleeing genocide at home, but this historical relationship has recently flipped, with hundreds of Mexicans crossing the border to escape the violent tyranny of organised crime groups.
Entire communities emptied out last week as more than 500 men, women, children and the elderly fled with what they could carry and walked across the border, citing food shortages and the conflicts between criminal groups pressing in ever closer on their homes.
One refugee, a 93-year-old woman, died shortly after arriving in Guatemala.
Guatemalan authorities have issued the refugees temporary humanitarian visas while the two governments work to bring them back to Mexico.
The refugees are the latest victims of the spiralling insecurity in a state that has deteriorated perhaps more than any other since president Andrés Manuel López Obrador took power in 2018.
Chiapas used to be a relatively safe part of Mexico, known for its colonial towns and archaeological ruins, as well as the Zapatista uprising of 1994 that became a symbol for Indigenous rights and resistance to globalisation.
That began to change roughly three years ago, and the situation has degraded dramatically over the last year as various organised crime groups fight for control.
“We’re seeing confrontations with heavy weapons, armoured vehicles and even armed drones,” said a local human rights defender who asked to remain anonymous for their safety. “During these battles they’ve cut electricity and communications, and health services and education have been suspended.”
In addition to executions and forced disappearances, local reporters have documented communities being forced to mount blockades or even join organised crime groups.
“People live in constant terror, fear, anxiety,” said the human rights defender. “It’s a humanitarian crisis – of a kind we didn’t see even when the Zapatistas mounted an armed uprising against the Mexican government. The civil population has been taken hostage.”
According to one report, roughly 17,000 people were forcibly displaced in Chiapas between 2010 and 2022, with a dramatic acceleration towards the present.
Small groups had dripped into Guatemala – but last week’s mass exodus was unprecedented.
“We haven’t seen anything on this scale in recent years,” said Parker Asmann of Insight Crime. “And I think that speaks to how severe the violence has become – and to the complete lack of faith that local communities have in Mexican authorities to ensure their safety.”
On one level, the conflict in Chiapas reflects the continuing power struggle between the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel, the country’s two most powerful organised crime groups, which are fighting to control territory and businesses across Mexico.
Chiapas is a key transit point for cocaine shipments as well as migrants travelling to the United States. Criminal groups have also set up extortion rackets, taxing the local population.
But the conflict between these groups has also taken in and inflamed existing tensions in a region with a history of violence over access to land.
The Zapatistas – who never laid down their weapons – have tried to resist the incursion of organised crime, while other communities have set up self-defence squads and one Indigenous town, San Juan Chamula, created its own mafia, all adding to the proliferation of armed actors.
“You’ve got a lot of things happening at once: longstanding land conflicts, links between officials and organised crime, and a multitude of actors trying to profit from the economic opportunities in the state,” said Asmann. “It is extraordinarily complex.”
López Obrador has tended to play down the situation in Chiapas. Two months ago, he said it was “not on fire” and that “in five years [of this government] we have not had serious problems of insecurity in the state”.
The human rights defender accused the state of “indifference and denial”, while another person who works for an NGO on the border with Guatemala, who also asked to remain anonymous for their safety, said the authorities “are completely absent”.
Yet it is not clear that the situation would be improved by greater military presence – nor that local communities would want more soldiers.
“The Mexican state has a long history of repression in Chiapas, especially of Indigenous communities,” said Asmann. “There’s a general wariness between local communities and the armed forces. Many of those communities have criticised the state and armed forces for everything from simply being complacent to directly facilitating the violence.”
