Mexican Farmers Abandon Lands After Gulf Cartel Attacks near Texas Border

REYNOSA, Tamaulipas – Several farmers were forced to leave their lands after weeks of attacks by Gulf Cartel gunmen, culminating in the recent shooting of seven victims who were mostly children.

Farmers from the Congregacion Garza community and other nearby areas left their homes on Tuesday afternoon after burying three of their loved ones. The rural area is approximately 16 miles south of the Texas border.

On Saturday night, seven members of the Olivares family were returning to their homes after a religious celebration when gunmen ambushed and opened fire on their two vehicles. Two homicide victims were in their 60s and another was an underage girl. Three other young girls and a 73-year-old man sustained gunshot injuries.

The attack on the farmers comes after several weeks of attacks by the Gulf Cartel which targeted farmers for kidnapping, arson, and general demands to abandon property.

The area of the attacks is not far from Libramiento Sur highway, a road the Gulf Cartel uses to carjack unsuspecting motorists. The region features numerous dirt roads the cartel uses to avoid state police and military forces.

The attack on the farmers comes as Reynosa continues to see regular violence as a Gulf Cartel faction known as “Los Metros” fights their internal rivals from the Matamoros faction and the “Cartel Del Noreste” wing of Los Zetas. The sects are pushing east and west respectively to take lucrative drug trafficking and human smuggling routes into Texas.

Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities.  The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “A.C. Del Angel” from Tamaulipas