At least 17 men and three women were rescued this Sunday by the Army and the National Guard in an industrial area of Culiacán called Piggy Back. The discovery surprised the capital Sinaloa because all the kidnapped people were missing. Their identities were not made public, but the release came after a night of heavy violence in the state, in which criminal groups also dropped bombs from drones.
According to the Sinaloa Public Security Secretariat, in addition to the 20 people, weapons, ammunition, tactical vests, signal inhibitor antennas and doses of marijuana were found on site. So far, no person has been arrested, according to the local agency’s report.
This rescue was a relief in a context of violence that does not stop in Sinaloa. The 20 people were rescued alive and can now be removed from a register that has accumulated 4,000 missing people in the state in the last 14 months. This is the figure reached since the clash began between the two factions of the Sinaloa cartel, the one led by Iván Archivaldo Guzmán, eldest son of Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, and the other by Ismael Zambada Sicairos, known as Mayito Flaco, son of Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada.
The children of those who were partners and accomplices in the production and trafficking of drugs and weapons are now fighting for territorial control of Sinaloa, where they have already extended their illegal activities to real estate, logging and mining. According to official reports, the fighting has already caused 3,000 killings, including those who died at the hands of the Army and National Guard.
A few hours before the rescue of 20 people in the industrial area of the capital, an attack involving bombs dropped by drones was recorded in a party hall in Villa Juárez. This agricultural center, inhabited mostly by migrants, is located about 15 kilometers from the city of Culiacán. The attack, which was a direct attack on an event where a 15th birthday party was being held, left 10 injured. No criminal group has claimed responsibility for the incident, but in the propaganda circulating in WhatsApp and Telegram groups, the two factions admitted that people within the party had nothing to do with their struggle.
The death of five men at the hands of the army was also recorded on Saturday night in El Guasimal, a town north of Culiacán. Nine men were also detained there, one of them a French national, others from Jalisco and Sinaloa. According to reports by residents of the area, the men were wearing jackets with the writing CJNG, in reference to the Jalisco New Generation cartel, but this was not confirmed by the authorities or in the photographs shared with the press.
Rescues, attacks and clashes with the army have become part of the new normal in Sinaloa, especially in the capital, where civil and human rights organizations have raised their voices to demand a Sinaloa Plan, similar to the one announced for Michoacán after the murder of Carlos Manzo, mayor of Uruapan.
The Sinaloa government said an operation has also been underway locally since September 2024, although this has not served to reduce the violence. According to the civil organization Sinaloa Initiative, the violence has meant that at least 9 of the 20 municipalities of Sinaloa – Concordia, Choix, Badiraguato, San Ignacio, Navolato, Escuinapa, Cosalá, Rosario and Sinaloa – have become areas of total silence, due to the massive displacement of people and the lack of journalists and activists who can document what is happening in those regions.
