The leaders of the drug trade in the Gulf of Mexico have become the saviors of those who have no money to survive.
MEXICO (AristeguiNoticias) – Mexico is a country that, to this day, resists the onslaught of the coronavirus. With a population of more than 130 million, the confirmed cases of Covid-19 barely reach 21,000, while the number of deaths is around 2,000. These figures are very different from those of its northern neighbor, the United States.
However, the pandemic is affecting the population: many people have been confined to their homes and cannot go to work, so they have no income. And that, in the most impoverished population group, means that they have no food to eat.
Due to the coronavirus contingency in Mexico, families place red handkerchiefs to represent the lack of food. Photo: Merida Yucatan
That’s where the drug traffickers come in, distributing food to people, and lending money without interest to those who need to buy medicine or other articles. In the same way, the narco-traffickers are offering medical services and transportation, becoming a kind of parallel government.
Images are flooding the social networks, hundreds of boxes full of food have been distributed in the neediest neighborhoods. In places like Sonora, Sinaloa, Jalisco, and Tamaulipas, members of the various cartel groups have allegedly delivered food to low-income families.
The situation is as striking as it is worrying: in the photographs, you can see how each box is printed with the name of the Mexican cartels, to this day, considered amongst the most powerful in the world. In other words, these are groups that brings together some of the most feared drug traffickers and hitmen are not hiding when it comes to helping with money, medicines, medical treatments or distributing food to the most vulnerable population.
Members from the Cartel del Golfo give out food to those in need.
The narcos make it clear to the citizens who get the food: “This is from the Gulf Cartel –says one of the boxes handed out– so you know where it comes from; do not think it is from the DIF (National System for the Integral Development of the Family) or another company.
It is worth remembering that this is not the first time that drug traffickers have helped people. In 2013, members of the Gulf Cartel distributed large quantities of food to the inhabitants of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in Tamaulipas, in the north-east of Mexico, which had been affected by the passage of Hurricane Ingrid.
One question remains… Where is the government?