Civil war in the home of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel: Fear grips Culiacan
Al Jazeera
Recent abduction and arrest of a top drug lord has set off a vicious war inside Mexico’s most violent cartel.
Culiacan, Mexico – The man is lying, top off, trousers pulled down, amid the rubbish just off a main road in the capital city of the state of Sinaloa in northwestern Mexico.
It’s late September and he was dumped by a criminal group the night before, another victim of a power struggle that is ripping through Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel.
Shootouts in broad daylight, convoys of armed men travelling through the city outskirts, and more than 90 confirmed dead so far have characterised the latest cartel war in one of the most violent countries in the world.
It emerged later that the man was a father who had been walking with his daughter the evening before, when they were stopped and he was taken by a criminal group. His daughter, age five, was left alone on the street until a neighbour found her.
This is the new reality for Culiacan: fear and violence on a daily basis.
