The state of Guerrero in southern Mexico has become so ultra-violent that morgues are now beginning to shut their doors.
According to The Guardian, the violence spawned by the cartels has now “emptied entire villages, closed schools and forced bus companies off the road.” Overcrowded morgues can no longer receive the large influx of dead bodies, and workers now refuse to handle to the overwhelming “stench of hundreds of decomposing bodies.”
“Lots of nausea. Lots of nausea,” state employee Laura Reyna Benjamín said of the smell to Televisa. “It makes you not want to eat because the stench really sticks with you.”
Workers report that the morgues no longer have the space to house the bodies or conduct autopsies. A morgue designed to house just 200 corpses has now been forced to store 600 bodies beyond capacity in the state capital Chilpancingo, just 200 kilometers south of Mexico City.
“Between eight and 10 bodies have been arriving daily at morgues in the state,” reports The Guardian, “while the state has registered 1,919 homicides so far this year – already at least 100 more than last year.”
The violence comes just one decade after Mexico implemented a full-scale military assault on organized crime, and 2017 may be the bloodiest year on record.
“This problem isn’t exclusive to Guerrero. It’s national,” said Father Mario Campos, a Catholic priest from the La Montaña region of Guerrero. “Our society has been battered by the narcos and our institutions are not responding or doing their jobs.”
“People are unable to make ends meet so they get involved with criminal groups because they pay them.”
Home to Acapulco, the state of Guerrero is a major tourist destination with various beach resorts located on the Pacific.
Everyone is to blame for this madness, from Mexico’s corrupt politicians to U.S. politicians refusing to shut down the border to U.S. heroin consumers. Though the state typically served as home to opium poppies, the U.S. demand for heroin prompted cartels to shift production, creating more violence. The Guardian has more:
Guerrero has long suffered violence, repression, and rule by local strongmen; it has also been the setting for some of Mexico’s most notorious crimes. In 2014, 43 students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training college were kidnapped by local police and presumably killed after they were handed over to drug traffickers.
Analysts say that government tactics have also inadvertently helped fuel the violence: law enforcement efforts targeting mafia leaders have led to the splintering of the previously dominant Beltrán Leyva cartel, unleashing a new round of conflict as rival factions vie for power.
At least 50 criminal groups now operate in the state, according to Guerrero’s attorney general, Javier Olea.
Translation: American heroin addicts are aiding in the slaughtering of people.