Category Archives: Mexico

Mexican border town uses ‘sanitizing tunnels’ to disinfect US visitors from Covid-19

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Authorities in Nogales, Sonora, are hoping to reduce chances of bringing the virus over from Arizona, one of the states most affected

Fears of foreigners bringing infectious disease into the country. Enhanced border checkpoints. And the use of disinfectant spray to sanitize human beings.

These aren’t notes from one of Donald Trump’s freewheeling press conferences. The United States’ troubled response to the coronavirus pandemic is such that the Mexican border city of Nogales, Sonora, has set up “sanitizing tunnels” to disinfect people leaving the US through Nogales, Arizona.

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‘What’s wrong with you Mexico?’ Health workers attacked amid Covid-19 fears

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Doctors and nurses have been assaulted, thrown off buses and barred from their homes, accused of spreading coronavirus

Jovanna was walking home after a morning of hospital consultations when she heard a shout behind her. As she turned to look, she felt something wet in her face. Within seconds, her vision went cloudy and she smelled bleach.

“They picked me out because I was wearing scrubs,” said the ear, nose and throat doctor from the Mexican city of Guadalajara, as she described the attack which left her with conjunctivitis and burns on her skin. “I didn’t see anything – I don’t know who it was, but I know they attacked another doctor on the same day.”

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Lockdowns leave poor Latin Americans with impossible choice: stay home or feed families

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Families struggle to maintain coronavirus restrictions as they seek to stay afloat: ‘My fear is my children going hungry’

Leaders across Latin America have ordered their citizens indoors as they struggle to tame the coronavirus.

But for Liliana Pérez, an Argentinian single mother of six, staying at home is a pipe dream.

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Mexican criminal groups see Covid-19 crisis as opportunity to gain more power

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Close to 200 active criminal groups act as guardians and protectors of communities while using extortion, kidnapping, and violence

Men with assault rifles stand guard as their colleagues hand out plastic bags of groceries from a pick-up truck to a crowd of mostly older women.

Off-screen, the man recording the mobile phone footage announces that the aid packages come from a local crime boss “who runs things here”, in the city of Apatzingán in Mexico’s western state of Michoacán.

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Major drug-gang shootout leaves 19 dead in northern Mexico

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The bloody battle broke out in the border state of Chihuahua, where the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels have been at war

A major shootout between rival drug gangs has killed 19 people in the northern Mexico border state of Chihuahua, officials say.

The state prosecutors’ office said on Saturday that 18 corpses, two grenades, vehicles and guns were found at the scene of the clash in the hamlet of Chuchuichupa the township of Madera.

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Mexico murder rate reaches new high as violence rages amid Covid-19 spread

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  • March sees 2,585 homicides – highest monthly figure on record
  • Mexico tries to pour resources into containing coronavirus

Mexico’s homicide rate raced to a new record in March, as violence raged even as Covid-19 spread across the country and authorities urged the population to stay home and practise social distancing.

Mexico registered 2,585 homicides in March – the highest monthly figure since records began in 1997 – putting 2020 on track to break last year’s record total for murders.

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Mexican journalist gunned down in first fatal attack of 2020

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  • María Elena Ferral shot eight times in Veracruz state
  • Attacks on reporters continue despite coronavirus pandemic

A Mexican journalist has been shot dead in broad daylight as violent crime in the country – and attacks on the press – continue amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Related: Mexico’s human rights chief draws fury for asking if journalists have been killed

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Mexican city rejects plans for giant US-owned brewery amid water shortages

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Vote in border city of Mexicali is unlikely win for farmers and activists over wealthy maker of Corona, Modelo and Pacifico

Voters in a Mexican border city have rejected the construction of a massive, US-owned brewery in an arid region rife with water shortages – an improbable victory for a collective of farmers and activists over a deep-pocketed company backed by state and local officials.

Related: Fate of US brewery in drought-hit Mexico goes to Amlo poll

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US-Mexico border is closed to non-essential travel as coronavirus outbreak continues – video

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Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, has announced the closure of the border as Donald Trump warned against 'mass, uncontrolled cross-border movement'.

The announcement comes two days after officials said the US-Canada border would similarly ban all non-essential travel as the pandemic continues. Pompeo also urged all Americans to stay in the country or immediately return home if they are abroad.


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Mexico’s deadly toll of environment and land defenders catalogued in report

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At least 83 murdered in 2012-2019, with a third of attacks targeting opponents of energy mega-projects

At least 83 Mexican land and environment defenders were murdered between 2012 and 2019, while hundreds more were threatened, beaten and criminalized, according to a new report.

Latin America is the most dangerous continent in the world to defend environmental, land and human rights, with Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala ranking worst.

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Fate of US brewery in drought-hit Mexico goes to Amlo poll

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President continues direct democracy drive that critics say is skewed towards his desired outcome

The fate of a giant US brewery under construction in Mexico’s parched borderlands will be put to a vote this weekend in the latest attempt at direct democracy by the country’s populist president.

The brewery in Mexicali has provoked controversy in a region where the climate crisis has already caused droughts, and where farmers and residents have taken exception to a US company, Constellation Brands, extracting water to produce beer for export.

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Bolsonaro and Amlo slammed for snubbing coronavirus warnings

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The populist leaders of Brazil and Mexico have come under fire after publicly thumbing their noses at growing fears over the spread of the coronavirus.

Related: Trump 'offers large sums' for exclusive access to coronavirus vaccine

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Mexico president’s response to historic femicide protests: more of the same

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A day after thousands protested against the murder of women and girls, López Obrador said he would ‘reinforce the same strategy’

A day after Mexico’s women collectively shut down the country in an eruption of fury over gender violence, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has insisted that he will not try a new strategy to stop femicides.

Thousands of women went on strike on Monday, in a historic protest against the murder of women and girls – and the failure of successive governments’ efforts to stop a crisis in which around 10 women are murdered every day.

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Spain: huge haul of methamphetamine found in marble blocks

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Five people held after 752kg of drug found in 25-tonne blocks imported from Mexico

Police in Spain have seized 752kg of methamphetamine after breaking up a gang that was smuggling the drug into the country by hiding it in special cavities drilled into huge blocks of marble.

The investigation into Spain’s largest-ever methamphetamine seizure of the drug began last August after police and inland revenue officers noticed that a company was importing 25-tonne marble blocks from Mexico to the Spanish port of Valencia despite lacking the necessary resources and infrastructure.

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US supreme court blocks lawsuit by family of Mexican boy slain at border

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Ruling marks the second involving cross-border incidents preventing cases by foreign nationals in US federal courts

The US supreme court has thrown out a lower court’s ruling that had let the family of a slain 16-year-old Mexican boy pursue a civil rights lawsuit against a US border patrol agent who shot the teenager from across the border in Arizona.

The justices took the action in light of their ruling last Tuesday in a similar case in which they decided on a 5-4 vote to bar a lawsuit against another border patrol agent for fatally shooting a 15-year-old Mexican boy from across the border in Texas.

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African-Mexican carnival of Coyolillo – in pictures

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The carnival in Coyolillo, a town in the coastal state of Veracruz in Mexico, dates back more than 100 years. This non-religious festival includes parades, dances, music and feasting and is the heritage of sugar cane workers and slaves of African origin freed from farms. The event is known for the colourful robes, capes and animal masks – of bulls, deer, goats and cows – worn by participants. As such, the carnival is a unique expression of African-Mexican folk art

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How the American dream died on the world’s busiest border

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It is a place where worlds converge, a vast melting pot of different peoples, all in search of a better life. Yet the US-Mexico border is also, increasingly, a focal point for human suffering

Milson, from Honduras, sits with his 14-year-old daughter, Loany, on the reedy riverbank beside the bridge connecting Matamoros, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, with downtown Brownsville, Texas, across the Rio Grande.

On the far reach – a few yards but another world away – is a vast tent (officially a “soft-sided facility”) erected to cope with the sheer numbers seeking asylum in the US. In a few weeks’ time, on the date stipulated on their “notice to appear” document, the people staying here will have their “credible fear interview” by video link.

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‘It fills us with rage’: Mexican activists protest femicide at presidential palace

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Demonstration stemmed from outrage over killing of Ingrid Escamilla and publication of photos of her mutilated corpse

Dozens of activists gathered outside Mexico’s presidential palace on Friday to protest against violence against women, chanting “Not one murder more” and splashing one of its large, ornate doors with blood-red paint and the words “femicide state”.

Related: 'Why did she have to die?' Mexico's war on women claims young artist

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