The Michoacan area in Mexico has become so illegal that a gang of female vigilantes are tasked with protecting their friends and family.
The state, which is the world’s largest supplier of avocados and limes, has recently been surrounded by the violent drug cartel in Jalisco that comes from the neighboring state and therefore women are fighting, according to The Associated Press .
Women carry assault rifles and are blocked, often while pregnant or carrying small children, to combat the rising levels of homicides, which have skyrocketed since 2013.
Most women have lost family members because of the cartel, such as Blanco Nava who told the AP that his son Freddy Barrios, a 29-year-old boilermaker, was abducted by alleged gunmen from the Jalisco cartel in vans; she never knew anything about him.
Another woman claimed that her 14-year-old daughter was abducted and has not been seen since, and said, “We will defend those we have left, the children we have left, with our lives. Women are “tired of seeing our children, our families are disappearing. They are taking our children, they are taking our daughters, our relatives, our husbands.”
Women are left to fight, as most men are away to work for the cartels (willingly or not).
“As soon as they see a man who can carry a gun, they take it away,” the woman told the AP. “They disappear. We don’t know if they have them (as recruits) or if they have already been killed. “
The vigilante women also made a homemade tank, “a heavy truck with welded sheet steel armor,” AP reports, while women from other cities have dug trenches through roads leading to the neighboring state. of Jalisco, to keep out the attackers. .
Alberto García, refused to join the cartels and had to flee. His family members were not so lucky.
“They also killed one of my brothers,” Garcia said. “He was chopped up and my sister-in-law, who was eight months pregnant.”
Vigilantes say they should resort to these tactics, as the government and police do not.
Sergio Garcia, a male member of the El Terrero watchdog group, says his 15-year-old brother was abducted and killed by Jalisco. Now he wants justice that the police have never given him.
“We’re here for a reason, to get justice by hook or by deception, because if we don’t, no one else will,” Garcia said.