In Choix, “from children to adults” carry weapons

Like so many communities in the mountainous area of Choice, San Simón is taken over by organized crime, not for nothing is it within the so-called golden triangle and maybe also because of that Rafael Caro Quintero he felt safe hiding there.

The route to San Simón, where the drug trafficker was arrested, is inaccessible. There are sections where the dirt road is lost, more so during this rainy season, when the river flow increases.

Besides, andThe narco turned these Sinaloa ranches into ghost townsdisplacing hundreds of people, according to residents of neighboring towns.

In these communities of Choix the hawk dominates. If an outsider enters, jyouths on motorcycles begin to come out and go around, alerting the population to the presence of someone strange.

the community of Bacayopaconsidered one of the “heaviest”, is the last point that the map shows to reach San Simón. From there, you have to continue on foot, or if necessary and for those who know the area, by motorcycle.

“In Choix, it is common for even children to carry weapons”

A priest in Choix, who requested anonymity for security reasons, said that in the area, contact with organized crime is part of what the population experiences on a daily basis and that it is even “normal” for them to carry weapons “from children to adults”.

“It is the most common because they have grown there and that is how it has developed. Nobody is alien to this reality,” he lamented.

“Behind a gun, there are people who have a heart”

The priest recalled that the first time he was stopped at a checkpoint with goat horns in his hand, “I trembled with fear.”

“That time I asked myself: ‘Where am I?’ Fear takes over,” she said.

“In the end you end up realizing that behind a hood, behind a vest, behind a weapon, there are people who really have a heart,” he added.

The father assured that in these mountain communities dominated by drug traffickers “he feels respected” and has not suffered any lack of respect, “so far, thank God.”

The priest even said that on one occasion, the drug traffickers of that mountain area invited him to breakfast.

“I had the opportunity to say: ‘no, thank you very much, excuse me, I don’t have time anymore, I’m leaving,’ but something inside me told me: ‘this is the opportunity, now is the time.'”

“Sharing their origins, where they come from, even expressing what brought them there. Everyone has their story and many of us judge the effects, but without knowing the past

“We arrived at that place, hidden and withdrawn, with security, the security is surprising, arriving and sitting at the table and hearing: ‘here without weapons!’ (…) Seeing how they took off their armor and taking off those masks, taking off all their artifacts, for me that moment was saying: ‘it is possible to make a difference!’”, narrated the father.

The diocesan in Choix also said that during his experience, parents have asked him to talk to their children so that they are not part of organized crime.

“I saw the need of that woman: ‘father, this’, and that’s where one says: ‘well I do as much as I can (…) because there are those who are willing to listen, there are others who are not and tell you: ‘I’m great It’s my life,'” he said.

The parish priest of one of the municipalities with the greatest criminal presence in Sinaloa maintained that in this region he has “found the need for people who want to be touched by God.”

“There is a certain nobility and a certain degree of kindness in these people,” he said while telling that even during the masses they have asked him to pray for them.

“I don’t know if I should call it a blessing, but in my experience I have been given the chance to share the gospel with them, to be given the opportunity to speak to them, to see how they say: ‘in the chapel without weapons’”. This is being a priest in the mountain community of Choix, in Sinaloa.

In this mountainous area, it is where Rafael Caro Quintero, the “narco de narcos”, was arrested. (Jose Antonio Belmont)