Authorities say 600 Mexicans have crossed into Guatemala to escape drug cartel violence

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Nearly 600 Mexicans have fled across the border from Mexico into Guatemala seeking refuge from drug cartel violence, Guatemalan authorities said Wednesday.

Guatemala President Bernardo Arévalo said that his administration was coordinating with the local governments in Huehuetenango and the municipality of Cuilco to attend to the Mexicans “who are escaping conflict between groups that is taking place on the Mexican side.”

A government report obtained by The Associated Press described accounts from the refugees who explained they had abandoned their homes because of a lack of food and fighting between organized crime groups. Among the 580 people were men, women, children and elderly.

On the Mexican side, Chiapas’ state security agency said it had received no reports from the area. Mexico’s foreign affairs ministry and National Guard did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the Mexicans who sought refuge in Guatemala.

Cartels from the northern states of Sinaloa and Jalisco battle for territory across Mexico. And for more than a year they have brought that fight to Chiapas along its border with Guatemala. They fight to control lucrative smuggling routes for drugs, migrants and guns.

In June, some 5,000 people were displaced by violence in another part of Chiapas after armed men set houses on fire in the town of Tila.

In September of last year, Mexico’s president conceded that the cartels had cut off electrical power in some Chiapas towns near the border with Guatemala, and forbidden government workers from coming in to the largely rural area to fix power lines.

The Mexican families began arriving to various locations in the Cuilco municipality Tuesday, according to Guatemala’s National Disaster Reduction Coordinator, one of the agencies attending to the refugees.

Among those who fled Tuesday was a 91-year-old woman suffering from diabetes who was not able to take her medicine with her and died during the journey, according to the Guatemalan government report.

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AP writer María Verza in Mexico City contributed to this report.