It’s been 14 months since some 5,000 people in Chiapas were forced to flee their homes in Chalchihuitán And although about 4,000 have since returned a situation for which they hold the municipal government responsible Representatives of the displaced people told a press conference this week that they have yet to recover their properties which were occupied by armed civilians after the residents fled Municipal and state authorities have denied the existence of the displaced families on the grounds that they have abandoned the camps in which they had been staying the displaced people have simply dispersed Those who remain in camps do not stay in one place for long because authorities put pressure on the owners of the land to limit the time they can stay The former Chalchihuitán residents accuse Mayor Hermelindo García Núñez of instigating the conflict and discriminating against the displaced They also accused him of attempting to incarcerate and lynch some of their number after they had attended a meeting with state and municipal authorities Things got worse after the disappearance of a 15-million-peso payment (US $750,000) by the state government to the displaced The latter demanded that the state government comply with the recommendations by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights which urged municipal authorities to end the climate of violence and confrontation it has instigated The exodus from Chalchihuitán occurred in October last year when more than 5,000 people left everything behind and fled to the mountains after community leader Samuel Luna Girón was slain The conflict has its roots in a longstanding dispute over territorial boundaries Source: Reforma (sp) ADVERTISE WITH MND COMMUNITY GUIDELINES Subscription FAQ's Privacy Policy Mexico News Daily - Property of Tavana LLC Verónica García cradles her baby on her lap She looks tired and speaks with a weak voice Weeks of living under a plastic sheet in the forests have taken their toll She had to give birth here several weeks ago without a doctor present or any kind of medical care after her little boy was born “It’s been very hard,” she says in Tzotzil There’s not much food and it gets cold at night García is one of approximately 5,000 indigenous Tzotzil Mayans who since late October have been scattered in small impromptu camps in the area surrounding the town of Chalchihuitán They say they were chased out of their homes by unknown gunmen after the escalation of an old land dispute with little food and no sanitation or water The few blankets they have are reserved for the elderly Most of the displaced people are subsistence farmers They do not speak Spanish and were already among Mexico’s poorest and most marginalized indigenous communities before they were forced out of their homes Approximately 5,000 indigenous Tzotzil Mayans have been scattered in small refugee camps in the area surrounding the town of Chalchihuitán Their living conditions have taken a deadly toll; at least 11 people died since the refugee crisis began a parish priest and head of the social ministry of the Diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas died as the result of cold and malnourishment Another adult male victim was shot to death when the first communities were attacked by the gunmen “The situation is severe; the refugees urgently need help,” Father Pérez said during a recent visit of America to Chalchihuitán Father Pérez has been tending to the camps since the first refugees arrived in Chalchuihuitán but he told America that the diocese lacks the resources to provide all of the refugees with proper care He said his most important work is to make the outside world aware of what he considers to be a looming humanitarian crisis sending photos and videos of the camps via social media to journalists and human rights activists the refugee crisis has received relatively little attention in Mexican and foreign media “It’s important that the world knows what’s going on here,” he said “We can’t just be indifferent to the plight of these people.” The origins of the conflict that provoked the villagers’ dislocation date back to 1973 when the Mexican Agrarian Reform Secretariat decided on the boundaries between the municipalities of Chalchihuitán and Chenalho The decision was historically rejected by inhabitants of the latter and conflict over the land redistribution has periodically led to tension and spats of violence between both towns An agrarian tribunal ruled in favor of Chenalho on Dec determining that the original 1973 ruling in favor of Chalchihuitán was erroneous and transferring the 740 acres of land to the other municipality Chalchihuitán had already been flooded with people escaping the violence Conflicts over land are a common occurrence in Chiapas While the rest of the country steadily modernized during the 20th century Chiapas retained many of its old colonial traits Rich landowners still controlled large plantations forcing the impoverished indigenous population into quasi-servitude until only decades ago Although the arrival of the socially conscious bishop Samuel Ruiz and an indigenous uprising in 1994 led by the guerilla of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation (EZLN) ultimately pushed the state toward some degree of economic development Chiapas’ indigenous inhabitants remain among the poorest and most marginalized in the country Education and medical care still lag behind the rest of the country; discrimination against indigenous people is still widespread According to the refugees and the Diocese of San Cristobal the most recent outburst of violence in Chalchuihuitán started when unarmed and masked gunmen began shooting at homes in small According to dozens of refugees America spoke to in five of the camps allegedly retired soldiers who were armed by the municipal authorities of Chenalho to seize the land residents of Chalchuihuitán had been living on America was unable to reach the Chenalho municipal authorities for comment over the Christmas holiday but more attacks occurred in the weeks that followed The Chalchuihuitán refugees said that they can still hear gunfire at night and Father Pérez warned that several other nearby communities are in danger of being abandoned soon “We can’t go back; they are still shooting at our homes; they are killing us,” said Flor Pérez Hernández who sought refuge in another camp with approximately 200 others A short drive through the surrounding countryside and towns showed no sign of armed paramilitaries although heavily armed soldiers were patrolling the main roads gunmen just a few days earlier had set up a road block several homes were riddled with bullet holes At least a dozen bullet casings and an unfired bullet could be found on the ground nearby Other homes showed signs of ransacking; their doors were broken open with force and the floors were riddled with pieces of broken furniture and personal items The buildings and roof of another house were black with burn marks; the parishioners said the house had been set on fire several weeks before Father Pérez said that the attacks on local villages and the flight of their residents follow a chilling pattern the same events played out in the months before the massacre of Acteal an indigenous village some 20 miles to the east a paramilitary group called “Red Mask” slaughtered at least 45 members of the pacifist Catholic group Las Abejas (“The Bees”) with the alleged complicity of local police and soldiers standing idly by “I’m worried for what may come in the next weeks,” Father Pérez said and the refugees must be allowed to go back home.” federal undersecretary for human rights Roberta Campa announced a plan to disarm the gunmen 27 from the Chiapas state government of its willingness to negotiate an end to the conflict and the safe return of the people from Chalchihuitán But according to text messages from Father Pérez on Dec the conditions for the displaced Tzotziles has not changed “I just want the violence to stop and the gunmen to disarm,” said Verónica García on the refugee camp on the hilltop Jan-Albert Hootsen is America’s Mexico City correspondent Password reset instructions will be sent to your registered email address As a frequent reader of our website, you know how important America’s voice is in the conversation about the church and the world. We can't do it without you—America Media relies on generous support from our readers. Please visit our membership page to learn how you can invest in our work by subscribing to the magazine or making a donation If you’re already a subscriber or donor, thank you! If you login and register your print subscription number with your account, you’ll have unlimited access to the website. Please contact us at members@americamedia.org with any questions In Mexico’s 15 poorest municipalities – located in three southern states with large indigenous populations — more than 98% of the population lives in poverty A report published by national social development agency Coneval on Wednesday shows that eight of those municipalities are in Oaxaca The poorest municipality in 2020 was San Simón Zahuatlán, Oaxaca, where 99.6% of residents live in poverty. In 2019, human development in the municipality, located in the state’s Mixteca region, was comparable to that in Yemen, the United Nations said in a report The second poorest municipality was Cochoapa el Grande, Guerrero, where the practice of selling young girls into marriage to alleviate poverty is common 99.4% of residents in the Montaña region municipality live in poverty The other 13 municipalities with poverty rates above 98% were San Juan Cancuc – were also among the 15 poorest municipalities in the country in 2010 and 2015 A person is considered to be living in poverty if their income is below Coneval’s poverty threshold – currently 3,898 pesos (US $187) per month in urban areas and 2,762 pesos (US $133) in rural areas – and they present at least one social deficiency out of six among which are poor access to adequate nutrition A person is considered to be living in extreme poverty if their income is below 1,850 pesos per month in urban areas and 1,457 pesos in rural areas and they present at least three social deficiencies The 15 municipalities with the highest extreme poverty rates are also located in Oaxaca Santiago Amoltepec ranked first in that category with 84.4% of residents living in extreme poverty Coneval also identified the municipalities with the highest number of residents living in poverty and extreme poverty last year headed the former list with almost 817,000 impoverished people Five other municipalities had more than half a million poor people in 2020, when poverty levels rose due to the pandemic had the highest number of people living in extreme poverty – more than 126,000 – while León also had more than 100,000 extremely poor residents Coneval said that half of all Mexicans not considered poor live in just 46 urban municipalities located mainly in the country’s central and northern states an affluent municipality in the metropolitan area of Monterrey had the lowest poverty rate in the country in 2020 with just 5.5% of residents considered poor Human development there in 2019 was comparable to that in France Eleven of the 15 municipalities with the lowest poverty rates last year – all 11% or lower – are in Nuevo León The four other municipalities among the 15 with the lowest poverty rates last year are Benito Juárez A report published earlier this month said that Mexico is one of the most unequal countries in the world The top 10% of income earners in Mexico earn over 30 times more than the bottom 50%