7 yıl önce

Violence over opium crops plagues Mexico's Guerrero state

The western Mexican state of Guerrero is one of the most prolific producers of opium in the world.

Staff Reporter

TRT World and Agencies

An opium grower shows how he "milks" a poppy flower bulb to obtain opium paste in the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains of Guerrero state, Mexico. (File photo)

In a region of Mexico that has become the world's third most prolific producer of opium, a wave of violence has engulfed the mountain communities, instigating a fight back from the local communities.

In the remote mountains of Guerrero state, opium poppies are the cash crop, and intense cartel competition to secure the harvest has led to a wave of violence that has displaced entire communities from their ancestral homelands.

Violence has spiked in the state over the past decade as a growing number of criminal gangs vie for control of crops of opium poppies and for drug-trafficking routes.

TRT World's Alasdair Baverstock has the story.