Mexico’s Mayan train suspension divides Indigenous community

A halt in the train’s construction has caused a bitter fight in Xpujil – a town of 4,000 people with limited resources.

Like many of the villages in Calakmul in the south of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, the sleepy, modest town of Xpujil lies alongside the area’s only federal highway. It is this road that is its main source of activity – heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) roar past open buildings; water trucks trundle about, relieving the arid, thirsty town. Queues of women and children form outside the hospital and, late at night, at the bus station. Some here feel that Xpujil (pronounced Ish-pu-hil) lacks infrastructure. “There are no banks, and the ATMs always run out of cash. I have to go to Chetumal [the nearest city] to get a good phone service,” says Anita, a 26-year-old mother. Many have placed hopes for a better-connected, better-resourced future on a train.