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TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — The Mexican border towns of Tijuana and Mexicali, along with Rosarito and Ensenada, were hit by gang violence, including vehicles being set on fire and roadblocks.
The US consulate in Tijuana has ordered its employees to “shelter in place until further notice” around midnight due to the violence late Friday.
It was the third time this week that Mexican cities have seen widespread arson and shootings by drug cartels. The gangs appear to target shops, vehicles and innocent bystanders in response to disputes or attempts to arrest gang members.
Baja California state officials said a total of 24 vehicles had been hijacked and burned at various points in the state: 15 in Tijuana, three in Rosarito and two in Mexicali, Ensenada and Tecate.
Tijuana mayor Montserrat Caballero blamed disputes between drug gangs and asked them to stop the violence.
Caballero made a public call for “organized crime,” the term used in Mexico for drug cartels, to stem the growing trend of targeting innocent civilians.
“Today, we say to the organized crime groups that commit these crimes that Tijuana will remain open and take care of its citizens,” Cabellero said in a video, “and we also ask them to settle their debts with those who did not pay what they guilty, not with families and hard-working citizens.”
The extent of the violence was still unclear on Saturday. Late Friday, the U.S. Consulate General in Tijuana said in a statement that it is “aware of reports of multiple vehicle fires, roadblocks and heavy police activity in Tijuana, Mexicali, Rosarito, Ensenada and Tecate.”
On Saturday, few people took to the streets in Tijuana and many of the bus and passenger bus services stopped running, preventing some residents from getting to where they were going.
“Let them fight it out, but leave us alone,” said Tijuana resident Blanca Estela Fuentes, as she searched for a means of public transportation. “So they kill each other, they can do whatever they want, but the public, why are we to blame?”
The federal public security service said one person was injured in the violence and federal, state and local forces had arrested 17 suspects, seven of them in Tijuana and four in Rosarito and Mexicali.
The mayor’s comment about Tijuana staying open was a clear reference to the border town of Ciudad Juarez, opposite El Paso, Texas, where some classes and public events were canceled after similar violence on Thursday.
Alleged gang members killed nine people, including four radio station employees, in Ciudad Juarez after a fight between rival gangs in a local prison left two inmates dead.
On Tuesday, armed drug cartels burned vehicles and businesses in the western states of Jalisco and Guanajuato in response to an attempt to arrest a high-ranking Jalisco cartel leader.
Oxxo, a national chain of convenience stores owned by Femsa, the country’s largest bottling company, said 25 of its stores in Guanajuato — which borders Jalisco, home of the cartel of the same name — were burned in whole or in part on Tuesday.
Bordering Southern California, the Tijuana area is a lucrative drug trafficking corridor that was long dominated by the Arellano Felix cartel, but has since become a battleground between several gangs, including the Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels.
On Thursday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said of the violence in Ciudad Juarez: “They attacked the innocent civilian population as a form of revenge. It wasn’t just a clash between two groups, but it got to the point where they started shooting at civilians, innocent people. That is the most unfortunate thing in this case.”
The shooting killed four employees of the MegaRadio station broadcasting a live promotional event outside a pizzeria in Ciudad Juarez.
Such indiscriminate violence is not unprecedented in Mexico.
In June last year, a rival faction of the Gulf Cartel invaded the border town of Reynosa, killing 14 people whom the governor identified as “innocent civilians.” The military responded and killed four suspected gunmen.