(Guatemala) Guatemala has deployed more than 2,000 soldiers to its border with Mexico in an attempt to stem drug trafficking in the region, the army announced Thursday.
The soldiers have been deployed since Tuesday in the departments of San Marcos and Huehuetenango, mountainous areas of Guatemala inhabited mainly by indigenous Mayan populations. In these poor and isolated areas, many residents survive by growing marijuana and poppy plants from which opium and heroin are produced.
Across the border, the state of Chiapas (southern Mexico) is in the grip of a war between the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels.
The violence has led to food shortages and power outages, forcing businesses to close and residents to source supplies from Guatemala.
Guatemalan army spokesperson Colonel Ruben Tellez told reporters that the objective of the military deployment was to “prevent groups linked to transnational organized crime from entering Guatemalan territory and causing violence.” distress to local populations.
The two countries share about a thousand kilometers of difficult-to-police border with numerous illegal crossings for drug and human trafficking, undocumented migrants en route to the United States.