Pantelhó, Chis., The Mexican Army, the National Guard (GN) and the state police retaken control of the head of the municipality of Pantelhó, where on Thursday armed men shot six officers and three soldiers. The municipal seat is a ghost town, with all the houses closed and without electricity since Wednesday when an armed group broke in and set up checkpoints.
The more than one hundred uniformed officers opened the way on Friday on the San Cristóbal-Pantelhó highway, which remained blocked with trees and two burned-out trucks – presumably patrol cars – at a point called San José El Carmen, about four kilometers from the head, where on Thursday the military and police were ambushed.
According to residents, some families moved to other places by alternative routes, because the main road that connects Pantelhó with San Cristóbal was closed. Also, 225 people belonging to the civil society organization Las Abejas, from the towns of Quextic Centro and Quetic Poblado, near the head of Pantelhó, traveled to Acteal and, therefore, in a risk zone.
The situation in this place worsened as of July 5, when the catechist, Simón Pedro Pérez López, former president of the organization of the Civil Society Las Abejas de Acteal, was assassinated by a bullet in the neighboring municipality of Simojovel, allegedly by members of a criminal group from Pantelhó, after denouncing the abuses suffered and demanding the intervention of government authorities.
Various versions indicate that this group, allegedly linked to the PRD municipal authorities, is confronted with another organization formed by residents to repel the aggressions, called the Defensores del Pueblo.
Neighbors of San José El Carmen explained that when they slept on Wednesday at approximately 2 hours, they heard the sounds of chainsaws that were cutting trees to block the road.
A local said that “afterwards they started shooting between the two sides. I no longer went out. It is not known who the shots were between. We lock ourselves up. The shooting took place less than 100 meters from my house, on the border between Chenalhó and Pantelhó. We did not have time to leave. Around 6 or 7 in the morning the gusts began again. I told my family not to move and we all got together in the earthenware house ”.
On Thursday morning the soldiers and police arrived “I was more afraid because the shooting was closer; when he calmed down I went up (the hill) with my son-in-law. We had nowhere to run. We are going to stay here, I told my family, and God save us; we are not involved, and thank God nothing happened to us ”.
Another man said that 13 people were protected in the block’s house. “We were hidden, we didn’t see anything. We stayed, as it was early when they blocked the road. We heard they were cutting down trees. After 10 minutes, a car got in and the shooting began ”.
He commented that five families live in that place, related to each other, that “we are unharmed without any mishap, there are only six bullet wounds on the sheet of my house.”
“There is a lot of fear” among the population, for which he asked “that there be order and that the GN and the Army remain, because a lot has happened in the last week when they killed a man nearby.”
GN agents assured that together with elements of the Army and state police they entered the head of Pantelhó on Wednesday, and on Thursday morning, when they were making a tour of the highway, they were ambushed near San José El Carmen, with the result of eight personnel wounded by gunshot wounds.
The uniformed men, attacked from a hill where the pantheon is, fired at the attackers. Hundreds of high-caliber shells struck and traces of blood were still on the road Friday.
Yesterday morning a military helicopter flew overhead, while the soldiers patrolled the 4-kilometer stretch in San José El Carmen and the headwaters, and after noon they removed the downed trees and the two burned-out trucks that obstructed the passage.
At the head, all the houses were closed. Only in the center of town, where there were dozens of police and soldiers, did neighbors gather to sign a document demanding the permanent presence of federal forces from the authorities.
An Army official assured that they already had control of the town, where the commander of the 31st Military Zone also arrived. The uniformed men gathered in front of the mayor’s office and in the park.
He added that apart from the nine wounded uniformed men, there is no record of more victims, although since Wednesday there have been versions of several deaths.
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