Armed clashes in a Tierra Caliente municipality of Guerrero have left residents fearing for their lives during the past three days Confrontations were reported in the municipality of Coyuca de Catalán located in the mountainous part of the state’s Tierra Caliente region told the news website Bajo Palabra that members of a criminal group believed to be the Familia Michoacana have engaged in gunfights with people defending forested land where opium poppies are grown They claimed they have been abandoned by state and federal security forces Reaching Coyuca de Catalán has been made difficult by highway blockades the Familia Michoacana have set up Soldiers and state police flew over Guajes de Ayala and the communities of El Pescado Hacienda de Dolores and Los Ciruelos in a helicopter on Wednesday afternoon but according to Bajo Palabra they were unable to find a suitable landing site Guerrero authorities said the security force members didn’t see any evidence of an ongoing armed conflict But video footage posted to social media by El Pescado residents on Wednesday afternoon showed part of a gunfight between the criminal group believed to be the Familia Michoacana and the forest defenders It is unclear if there have been any casualties Other Coyuca de Catalán residents have posted desperate videos to Facebook saying they have taken shelter and haven’t been able to go out to buy food for fear of being caught up in the violence One video shows more than 20 children sitting on the floor of a house while their mothers speak of their fear of being killed and the women say that the fighting is getting closer and closer Gunshots are also audible in several other videos posted to social media “For the government that says that nothing is happening listen: there’s the proof,” says a Guajes de Ayala resident in a video published on Facebook made news in March when they recorded a video distributed widely on social media that begged President López Obrador to keep the National Guard posted there members of the community also sent a letter to the U.N Just weeks before, eight men were killed and two women were abducted during clashes between Coyuca residents and suspected gang members Government reports indicate that more than 15 criminal groups are engaged in turf wars in the Tierra Caliente of Guerrero a region notorious for drugs and organized crime violence Among the warring groups are the Familia Michoacana the Caballeros Templarios and the Independent Cartel of Acapulco With reports from Infobae (sp) ADVERTISE WITH MND COMMUNITY GUIDELINES Subscription FAQ's Privacy Policy Mexico News Daily - Property of Tavana LLC The visit could put Mexico on the same footing as anti-drug operations in places like Colombia and Afghanistan It also coincides with US President Donald Trump's efforts to address a withering opioid epidemic that has claimed tens of thousands of lives in the US But if the US and Mexico are about to make the opium-poppy eradication a joint effort they may find their progress stymied by conditions on the ground and the nature of their foe the Mexican government says it eradicated 15,179 hectares of poppies.) not like census-based programs that more confidently measure cultivation and eradication "We don't know with any level of precision how heroin production has evolved in recent years," Mexican security analyst Alejandro Hope wrote in February 2016 former chief of international operations for the US Drug Enforcement Administration it can be hard to accurately gauge how many plants exist and are destroyed especially when relying on aerial observation and fumigation "People automatically do a formula that there's so many plants per meter and therefore they destroyed so many plants that would have produced a certain tonnage of opium because a lot of times they spray fields where the plant density is just very loose," Vigil "We're not talking about plants that are densely concentrated per square meter So they destroy 10 hectares and probably destroyed very few plants," Vigil said and they are frequently pictured crawling poppy-covered hillsides rooting out the pink-tipped bulbs that would eventually yield opium But aerial fumigation has also been used in places with a high incidence of cultivation Fumigation squadrons are deployed in MD-530F helicopters and Cessna 182SL planes Bell 407 and Bell 206 helicopters are also used when aerial-fumigation teams need to access remote or hard-to-reach spots calling it a matter of national security.) Mexican authorities tasked with aerial fumigation in the past have tried to mask the true amount of poppies destroyed very difficult to come up with an accurate figure simply because many times the Mexican government over exaggerates how many hectares they have sprayed in the eradication program," he added "And many times they purposely skew those numbers by spraying the same field twice and counting it as two separate fields." If observers are deployed on eradication missions in the future Mexican forces may also find ways to deceive them "It would be very difficult for them to verify [eradication totals] because they're not going to be out there on every spray mission they really don't know how many fields they're going to spray They could take them to the same field the following day and spray that same field that they observed 24 hours previously," leading observers to think a different field had been sprayed As much as 94% of the heroin that enters the US comes from Mexico US assistant secretary for state for narcotics William Brownfield said earlier this year (Mexico has also become a transit point for potent synthetic opioids like fentanyl which are sometimes added to heroin and can be fatal even in small doses.) Mexican-made heroin, and the Mexican criminal groups pushing it, has largely replaced heroin produced in Afghanistan and Colombia close to 80% of the heroin found in wholesale-level seizures was sourced to Mexico The most recent US efforts to support Mexican eradication are at least a year old dating to when Brownfield told Congress more work needed to be done to destroy poppies despite turmoil introduced to the relationship by Donald Trump rise to the presidency bilateral anti-drug efforts have gone smoothly Brownfield said the US has also offered to fund the eradication efforts "should we reach a basic agreement in terms of how they would do more and better eradication in the future." "That is on the table, but I don't want you to conclude that it's a done deal, because we still have to work through the details," he told Reuters He did not specify an amount of money the US could provide the US could offer more vehicles or fund helicopter flights to reach the remote parts of the country — typically mountain highlands — where poppies are grown "Our cooperation with the Mexican government on the heroin challenge is in fact good, and it is better than it has ever been in the past," Brownfield said MEXICO CITY (AP) — Gunmen killed the representative of Mexico’s Attorney General’s office in the southern state of Guerrero on Tuesday Fernando García Fernández was attacked in his vehicle near his office in the state capital of Chilpancingo The Guerrero state prosecutor’s office confirmed García’s killing and said it had opened an investigation The killing came just days after a regional prosecutor for the Guerrero state prosecutor’s office was killed in Coyuca de Catalan He had left the region known as Tierra Caliente that borders the state of Michoacan months ago due to threats and had recently returned Guerrero is an impoverished state long at the mercy of multiple criminal gangs that traffic drugs and extort residents The effort to relieve congestion with a tunnel under Highway 401 is now on PM Mark Carney's radar Premier Ford listed the project as one of Ontario's top priorities in need of federal support Ontario Premier Doug Ford calls on Prime Minister Mark Carney to prioritize a list of projects including the proposed Highway 401 tunnel Monday is calling for rain and thunderstorms Stella Acquisto has the long-range forecast Could we see another indefinite pause on postal service in the country Negotiations are underway again as Canada Post and the workers’ union try to cut a deal to avoid a lockout or strike later this month listen to NewsRadio Toronto live anytime and get up-to-the-minute breaking-news alerts weather and video from CityNews Toronto anywhere you are – across all Android and iOS devices