Nogales, Sonora.: Tourists needn’t fear
NOGALES, Sonora — Tourists shouldn’t cancel their trips to Nogales and other parts of Sonora just because of the U.S. State Department’s updated travel alert, city officials from the Mexican border city said Thursday.
The travel alert — which mentions Nogales, Sonora, and Route 15 between Nogales and Hermosillo among areas of concern due to increasing drug-cartel-fueled violence — has generated unnecessary fear and concern, said Marco Antonio Martnez Dabdoub, mayor of Nogales, Sonora. The alert came out on Tuesday.
Even with the spike in homicides this year in Nogales — 76 through September, surpassing the 2007 total of 52 and more than doubling the 2006 total of 35 — there haven’s been any tourists injured, hurt or killed, Martinez said. And there is no evidence that Route 15 is a dangerous one for anybody except those involved in drug trade, he said.
“We are worried because many people don’t understand the difference between warning, alert or recommendation, and they might interpret it to mean, ‘Don’t go,’ ” Martinez said in Spanish. “We can bet that if they come 100 times, there won’t be a single act of violence against them any of those times.”
[note: this was written before today’s article re: the shootout that left 10 dead.]