@Radio Pozol
On the morning of November 18th, a humanitarian aid brigade from Caritas San Cristobal de Las Casas and the Trust for the Health of Indigenous Children of Mexico (FISANIM) delivering food to forcibly displaced families, in the community of Tabak, Aldama, was shot at by an armed civil group allegedly from Santa Martha, Chenalho. In the attack, a nun Maria Isabel Hernandez Rea was injured in the right leg.
The actress Ofelia Medina and director of FISANIM denounced that “this is a criminal action, we had not been able to arrive to bring them much needed food, people are in a food emergency situation because the shootings are daily in this community and in all of Aldama. We must join forces and indignations so that this situation stops now.”
Maria Isabel, better known as Sister Chabelita, is 52 years old and belongs to the congregation of the Dominican Sisters of the Queen of the Holy Rosary. She works in the Parish of San Andres Larrainzar in the Diocese of San Cristobal de Las Casas, near Aldama.
“It should be noted that the state governments of Rutilio Escandon Cadenas and the federal government of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador have ignored in the face of constant calls to cease armed attacks on communities of the Maya Tsotsil people of Aldama, which survive the siege that increases the crisis of human rights, especially food and health”, the Fray Bartolome de Las Casas Center for Human Rights (Frayba) declared. Again it urged the authorities to “disarm and dismantle the paramilitary armed civil groups of Chenalho, directly responsible for the armed attacks that have caused forced displacement in the Chiapas Highlands region and that put the lives of those who provide humanitarian aid to the population at risk.”
For its part, the diocese of San Cristobal also condemned the attack and demanded punishment for those responsible, intellectual and material authors, for the attack. It also urged the Mexican State to “disarm and dismantle the paramilitary armed civil groups in that area and together with those who provide them with weapons, apply the weight of the law.” It added: “We don’t want another Acteal. We don’t want any more injuries and deaths. We don’t want any more displaced people. We do not want more suffering of women, girls and boys. We do not want more weapons in our villages.”
It stated that “the underlying problem has not been resolved” between Aldama and Santa Martha, which is why “violence has escalated with daily attacks at different points and different communities.”
The mayor of Aldama also stressed that at the time of the attack the members of the Mixed Operations Base (BOM), made up of elements of the Mexican Army and federal and state police, were 200 meters away. “Despite the presence of the police and the Army, the paramilitary armed groups of Santa Martha continue to attack our communities; they don’t respect anything, not even the police presence; they have not stopped”, he warned.
Separately, the State Attorney General’s Office (FGE) reported that the corresponding investigation file is being put together.
For more information in Spanish:
Diócesis de San Cristóbal reprueba ataque a caravana de ayuda humanitaria(La Jornada, 19 de noviembre de 2020)
Agresión armada a brigada de ayuda humanitaria en Tabak, Aldama (Frayba, 18 de noviembre de 2020)
Paramilitares atacan caravana humanitaria en Aldama; hieren a monja (La Jornada, 18 de noviembre de 2020)
Civiles armados atacan a religiosos de Cáritas, en Aldama, Chiapas (Aristegui Noticias, 18 de noviembre de 2020)
Aldama, Chiapas; hay una religiosa herida (Animal Político, 18 de noviembre de 2020)
For more information from SIPAZ:
sipazen.wordpress.com 