Photos: Sonora convoy
A reporter with a newspaper in the state of Sonora works on the next edition. Reporters have been beaten and threatened and their papers’ offices attacked by men opposed to stories about drug and human smuggling. Fearing for their lives, reporters rarely venture into cartel-occupied territory along the U.S.-Mexico border. Read more: “Mexico convoy threads its way through strange drug war in Sonora state.” (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
A woman hides her face behind a screen door where she lives in secret far from her ancestral home of Atil. She and her family fled their remote ranch near the U.S.-Mexico border when Beltran-Leyva cartel thugs executed her son and took over her house.
Read more: “Mexico convoy threads its way through strange drug war in Sonora state.” (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
Now living with a relative in Caborca, Maria Luz plucks her guitar and talks about how she used to play in the mission church but can never go home again. Drug-cartel gunmen took over her hometown of Tubutama and burned her family home of three generations.
Read more: “Mexico convoy threads its way through strange drug war in Sonora state.” (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
Mourners express grief at the funeral of Edgar Castillo Pico, 23, in Pitiquito, a little town on the fringes of Mexico’s drug war. Castillo died in a vehicle accident, and his funeral probably was paid for by a crime boss with the Sinaloa cartel, a local resident said. “He is a generous man and protects us,” one woman said of the gang leader. “Everybody loves him here.”
Read more: “Mexico convoy threads its way through strange drug war in Sonora state.” (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
On a brief mission of mercy to pay senior citizens their overdue retirement money, Mexican federal police convoy along a road to pueblos controlled by a drug cartel in Sonora state.
Read more: “Mexico convoy threads its way through strange drug war in Sonora state.” (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
Federal police enter the village of Saric in cartel-held territory. For a few hours, a de facto “cease-fire” between two rival cartels allowed the delivery of cash to seniors.
Read more: “Mexico convoy threads its way through strange drug war in Sonora state.” (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
Manuel Aureliano, 100, the oldest resident of Saric, raises his fist and yells, “Gracias a Dios -- Viva Mexico!” as his daughter pushes him along the town’s main street with his pension payment. Aureliano was born during the Mexican Revolution. He now lives in a cartel-controlled area, where besieged citizens are under the control of drug lords.
[For the record, 8:30 a.m. Oct. 17: An earlier version of this caption said Aureliano’s pension payment was $45. It was about $450.] (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
Alvarosa Lopez Varela, 71, clutches her $450 pension payment against a butcher knife she carried to the town hall. Since the Beltran-Leyva cartel took over Saric, no one knows the whereabouts of its 10 policemen or the mayor.
[For the record, 8:30 a.m. Oct. 17: An earlier version of this caption incorrectly said the pension payment was $45.] (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
Pensioners patiently watch fellow senior citizens receive their retirement payments. Tubutama and other pueblos near the Arizona border are besieged by two cartels battling each other for smuggling routes to the U.S.
Read more: “Mexico convoy threads its way through strange drug war in Sonora state.” (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
Retired ranchers and farmers in Atil wait in the community center to get their government pension.
Read more: “Mexico convoy threads its way through strange drug war in Sonora state.” (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
Mexican federal police stand near the mission church in Tubutama, once a popular destination for tourists. The church caretaker said, “This is now a sad place.”
Read more: “Mexico convoy threads its way through strange drug war in Sonora state.” (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
The shattered window of an abandoned house faces Tubutama’s centuries-old mission church. Fearing cartel violence, dozens of families left their generations-old homes. Cartel thugs have laid waste to several houses behind the mission.
Read more: “Mexico convoy threads its way through strange drug war in Sonora state.” (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
Mexican federal police drive through enemy territory south of the Arizona border. From the high embankments on this two-lane desert road, the Beltran-Leyva cartel ambushed and killed 21 Sinaloa cartel gunmen in July.
Read more: “Mexico convoy threads its way through strange drug war in Sonora state.” (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)