Culiacan, Mexico – The man is lying, top off, trousers pulled down, amid the rubbish just off a main road in the capital city of the state of Sinaloa in northwestern Mexico.It’s late September and he was dumped by a criminal group the night before, another victim of a power struggle that is ripping through Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel.
Shootouts in broad daylight, convoys of armed men travelling through the city outskirts, and more than 90 people confirmed dead so far have characterised the latest cartel war in one of the most violent countries in the world.
It emerged later that the man was a father who had been walking with his daughter the evening before, when they were stopped and he was taken by a criminal group. His daughter, age five, was left alone on the street until a neighbour found her.
This is the new reality for Culiacan: fear and violence on a daily basis.
More men were dumped the day following, sombreros placed on their heads — a message from whichever faction left them — its meaning, to the uninitiated onlooker, unclear.
One man’s neck hangs at an acute angle. Another has cuts on his face. One more, with terrible bruising on his stomach and ribs.
They’ve been left on the main highway out of Culiacan. Lines of motorists, diverted by police and soldiers at the scene, drive slowly past.
This city has long lived with “narcos” — it’s the epicentre of the powerful Sin …
