Mexico's president downplays cartel violence that drove nearly 600 Mexicans into Guatemala

MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador thanked Guatemala on Friday for helping the nearly 600 Mexicans who have crossed into Guatemala to escape drug cartel violence, but also minimized the violence that drove them there.

In his first comments since the refugees fled earlier this week, the president went on to add that Mexico is a large country, and like many other parts of the world, “there are conflicts.”

“Our (political) adversaries want to see that our government is unstable, that violence dominates and our country is being destroyed," he said. The National Guard would secure the area and the situation would soon be resolved, he said.

A Guatemalan government report said some 580 people had fled violence in the Mexican state of Chiapas, including men, women, children and elderly.

Families who crossed to the Guatemalan municipality of Cuilco said shootouts had forced them to flee and the cartels had made locals work checkpoints and used them as human shields while they battled their rivals.

Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo said Wednesday his administration would coordinate the humanitarian response though there was little sign of it yet. Arévalo said his administration was working with the local governments near the border to attend to the Mexicans, “who are escaping conflict between groups that is taking place on the Mexican side.”

Still, that was more than came from the Mexican side, where authorities did not respond to requests for comment about the situation until Friday.

Two of Mexico’s most powerful cartels from the northern states of Sinaloa and Jalisco have been battling for control of smuggling routes in the area of southern Mexico for more than a year causing multiple displacements.

In June, some 5,000 people were displaced by violence in another part of Chiapas after armed men set houses on fire in the town of Tila.

In September last year, Mexico’s president conceded the cartels had cut off electrical power in some Chiapas towns near the border with Guatemala, and forbade government workers from coming into the largely rural area to fix power lines.