ARGENTINA announced it was sending federal troops to the city of Rosario, confronting a drug gang blamed for the deaths of four innocent bystanders in recent days.
President Javier Milei wrote on social media platform X that his action was in response to a request from the governor of Santa Fe province, whose capital is Rosario.
Rosario, the third largest city in the country with a population of 1.3 million, is located on the Parana River, making it the center of the movement of drugs from Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay to Europe and Asia.
Federal police and armed forces headed to Rosario in central Argentina following four people were killed last week in violence blamed on drug trafficking gangs – two taxi drivers, a bus driver and a gas station employee.
The provincial government says the gang is giving back, following the governor imposed tougher prison conditions for high-profile prisoners serving sentences for drug offences.
In the murder of the gas station worker, the attackers left a note in which they demanded “rights for inmates in prison” and threatened to kill more innocent people.
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“The intellectuals and perpetrators of this attack, whom we without hesitation call terrorists, are trying to gain the privileges they had before: using mobile phones, unlimited conjugal visits, and especially planning and carrying out crimes from inside prison,” the provincial government said in a statement. Sunday.
Disgusted by drug-related gang unrest, last week Santa Fe governor Maximiliano Pullaro released a series of photos of restrained, shirtless prisoners under the watchful eye of heavily armed police.
It was following the release of these photos that the drug gang responded with an attack that left four onlookers dead.
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The governor also promised to complete construction of a long-delayed maximum security prison.
The moves have led some to accuse him of “Bukelization” – a Latin American phrase referring to the gang-fighting tactics of tough El Salvador President Nayib Bukele.
Pullaro said harsher conditions imposed on inmates, particularly drug gang bosses, had resulted in him receiving 25 death threats since he took office two months ago.
Rosario has a homicide rate five times the national average. It is also the birthplace of football star Lionel Messi. (AFP/Z-3)
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