800-1,000 Indigenous Families Flee Guerrero Drone Attacks

Between 800 and 1,000 Indigenous families fled their homes in the mountains of Guerrero state, Mexico, over the weekend after sustained attacks by the criminal group Los Ardillos using drone-dropped explosives and heavy weapons.

The violence, which began last week and intensified with eight hours of bombings on Saturday, targeted rural communities affiliated with the Peoples Indigenous Council of Guerrero-Emiliano Zapata (CIPOGEZ), including villages in the Chilapa de Alvarez municipality such as Alcozacán. Community representatives reported that families, including women, children and the elderly, escaped in the darkness on Sunday, Mexico's Mother's Day, carrying only backpacks. Videos circulating online showed residents huddling in a local church amid sobs, as well as gunfire and explosions echoing across farmland and forests with smoke rising from hillsides.

"They were attacking us with drones and with .50 high-caliber weapons, that's why I left and took my twin sons with me," one woman said in footage posted by an Indigenous rights group. "They killed the animals and now they're setting fire to the hillsides." CIPOGEZ spokesperson Marina Velasco described the assaults as...