Nine die in Mexico drug rehab clinic attack
Gunmen shot up a drug rehab clinic in Mexico’s troubled Sinaloa state om Monday, killing nine people and injuring several more in the seventh such attack in months, the local government said.
Officials believe cartels are targeting addiction treatment centers to forcibly recruit patients, who are executed if they resist.
The latest attack occurred at dawn in the state capital, Culiacan, gripped by a wave of violence as rival factions of the notorious Sinaloa cartel fight for supremacy.
Gunmen broke down the doors of the clinic and opened fire inside, killing eight people on the spot and wounding six — one of whom died hours later, a government report said.
It was the seventh such attack since September, according to an AFP count.
So far this year, cartel-related violence in Sinaloa has left at least 750 people dead and 900 missing, according to official figures.
The Sinaloa cartel was founded in the 1980s by drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who was arrested in Texas in July and is awaiting trial in New York on charges of drug trafficking, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder.
Backers of El Mayo accuse El Chapo’s sons, known as the “Chapitos,” of having been behind his capture in the United States.
The Sinaloa cartel is one of Mexico’s most powerful criminal groups, and one of eight drug syndicates designated as terrorist organisations by US President Donald Trump.
The Insight Crime think tank published a report in 2021, based on research conducted by the SinEmbargo digital newspaper, which found that organized crime groups are targeting rehab centers “to disappear people and recruit lookouts, hitmen and drug dealers.”
The investigation found that “organized crime has positioned itself to control some of the hundreds of rehabilitation centers in the country, both registered and clandestine,” and pointed to a “lack of state control.”
Some 480,000 people are estimated to have been killed in Mexico since 2006, when the government declared war on drug cartels, according to official figures.
About 124,000 have been officially registered as missing in the same period.
The government of President Claudia Sheinbaum has said it would seek to reduce rates of violence by boosting the National Guard, intelligence and investigation, but also by addressing the root causes: poverty and marginalization.
AFP
