Cartel Violence Continues Unabated Across the Border
When the shooting began, Daniel Cerda Salinas, an evangelical minister, took refuge in his neighbor’s home.
As the battle raged late into the night of March 10, Salinas began to question his faith in President Enrique Peña Nieto, the man he believed would free Reynosa from the paralyzing grip of Mexico’s drug cartels.
“It’s worse than before,” Salinas, 37, said of cartel fighting. “We don’t know when the shooting will begin, and we don’t know what to do, except trust in God.”
Over the next week, cartel gunmen clashed on at least four occasions in Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, blocking off sections of the city while residents waited in terror for the fighting to end. Official reports downplayed the carnage, but social media captured blood-stained streets and bullet-riddled, burned-out cars.
Since Peña Nieto took office Dec. 1, the drug war clashes that claimed tens of thousands of lives during the six-year administration of his predecessor have carried on at a dizzying pace, casting doubt on the president’s strategy to reduce violent crime.
Peña Nieto has pledged a less militaristic approach than the previous administration, touting social programs aimed at crime prevention, but the details are unclear.
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