Among the many horrific videos posted online amid Mexico’s drug cartel violence, few have been as deeply shocking as that of a 14-year-old boy kidnapped in late October with a dozen family members in southern Mexico. country.
In the video, released by his captors, the skinny, shoeless boy is seen sitting against a tree, his hands tied with rope and quietly saying he works for a rival drug gang. The boy spoke clearly under duress, his schoolboy face hesitant and cautious.
Authorities confirmed Friday that Angel Barrera Millán, 14, was one of four minors and seven adults including dismembered bodies were found thrown into the back of a van on the side of a highway this week.
The deaths underscore the brazen power of local drug cartels and government impotence in the Chilpancingo region, the capital of Guerrero state, where the resort town of Acapulco is located – and the neighboring municipality of Chilapa.
JESUS GUERRERO/AFP via Getty Images
The boy’s family was traveling to Chilapa on October 21 to sell their stock of plastic household items – buckets, dishes and other containers – at an open-air market when they were kidnapped by The Ardillos, a local cartel that controls Chilapa and was kidnapped. fight rival Tlacos for control of Chilpancingo.
“State authorities have allowed these organized crime groups to gain very entrenched control over these areas,” an activist with the human rights group Tlachinollan said on condition of anonymity, per fear of reprisals. “This area is completely controlled by the Ardillos,” including some areas, he said, where authorities were reluctant to enter.
Video posted online suggests the family may have originally been kidnapped because one of their members took a photo of the wrong person in town with their cell phone.
It is not clear what happened to the other two members of the group: 13 people disappeared and 11 bodies were found, including three women and another 13-year-old boy.
The family tragedy did not end with the 11 deaths. On October 27, four relatives went looking for the missing family and were themselves kidnapped. Since then, we haven’t heard from them.
Until Nov. 6, when the bodies were found, state authorities said they were conducting an extensive search in what had become a missing persons case involving 17 people, all of whom were close relatives.
Prosecutors released photos of police, soldiers, vehicles and drones fanning out on dirt roads and in the brush. The military called in helicopters and a reward of about $50,000 was offered for information on the missing, but it could not find them.
Apparently, the cartel probably killed them in Chilpancingo, the state capital with a population of 300,000. Their bodies were left on the main boulevard that runs through the city, which also serves as the main north-south highway to Acapulco.
The family’s death was not the first gruesome murder committed by the cartel.
At the beginning of October, the city’s mayor was killed and beheaded just a week after taking office. Alejandro Arcos took office on October 1 in Chilpancingo. His body was found in a van a week later, with his head on the roof of the vehicle. A few days later, four mayors asked federal authorities protection.
Alejandro Arcos via Facebook via Reuters
Arcos’ killing came days after that of another city official, Francisco Tapia, according to Institutional Revolutionary Party president Alejandro Moreno.
“They had been in power for less than a week. Young and honest civil servants who sought progress for their community,” Moreno said on X.
In 2023, another gang hijacked a government armored vehicle, blocked a major highway and took police hostage to secure the release of arrested suspects.
The human rights activist explained that the Ardillos control much of the state’s mountains, where they call mandatory community assemblies and force local residents to cooperate with the gang.
Mexican cartels frequently dump the bodies of their hostages – or post gruesome videos of torture, interrogations and beheadings of their victims – to intimidate rivals and the authorities. The messages are often left on victims’ bodies by cartels seeking to threaten rivals or punish behavior they believe violates their rules.
