Families driven from their homes by paramilitaries

Mexico: Indigenous families driven from their homes by paramilitaries

Las Margaritas, Chiapas, March 20th. "We are suffering here where we are, there is no water, and the children and our sister who is pregnant are suffering here," said one of the mothers of the Tojolabal indigenous community Primero de Agosto, displaced last February 24th by the Independent Centre of Agricultural and Campesino Workers - Historical (CIOAC-H), in the municipality of Las Margaritas.

"Thanks to God, nothing happened to us when the people from CIOAC came to displace us with high-powered firearms. The children cried and we ran as if we were animals," said the indigenous woman from the jungle border area, displaced together with her children and grandchildren.

"There are 12 of my family here, now we want to return, we want justice. The commissioner said clearly that the eviction was conducted by an order he had. Knowing who gave the order," she said in evidence during a solidarity meeting of the neighbouring communities with the displaced families.

"We do not want them to come to provoke us here as well. We want it sorted out. We are eating here and we have no home," she said from outside the camp where they have taken refuge, located on the stretch of road between Nuevo Momón and Monte Cristo Viejo.

"What we want is to return to our home. Please will countries demand that the government resolves the problem, because we are suffering a lot, because we have no water here," is their invitation to the national and international community.

"They took away all our coffee plants, grabbed all our chickens. They pass through here and joke, they also did this before the eviction. We want them to give us all the things that were burned by the government," the mother of the attacked family explains in the interview.

ENDS

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