A car bomb exploded this Saturday in front of the community police facilities of Coahuayana, in Michoacán, and left at least two dead and eight injured, including minors, as this newspaper learned. The attack on the headquarters of the municipal command occurred in the middle of the process of “pacification” of the state, a strategy implemented by President Claudia Sheinbaum after the brutal assassination of the mayor of Uruapan, Carlos Manzo, during a public event.
The explosion occurred around noon, as a truck carrying bananas passed in front of the command gate, as the head of the Coahuayana self-defense groups, Héctor Zepeda, known as Commander Teto, explained to EL PAÍS. Zepeda said the criminals did not leave the truck and drive away, but were instead on board.
This banana-producing land, with more than 7,000 hectares of plantations, has always been under siege. First it was the Templars, and lately the enemy is the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). Located in the coastal area of Michoacán, it is a contested territory, due to its powerful banana industry, its proximity to the Aquila mine and meth laboratories in the mountains.
Near Coahuayana are army and National Guard bases, but residents have warned for years against omitting them. It is for this reason that a year ago, in an interview for this newspaper plan pa, Commander Teto admitted to himself exhausted: “I am tired, but more disappointed by the government. The government continues to look at us with suspicion! We are not against them, we are against them supporting the others”.
With information from Pablo Ferri