Some 5,000 soldiers from the Guatemalan Army are protecting the border crossings with Mexico as part of Operation Ring of Fire (operación Cinturón de Fuego), which is being consolidated in the San Marcos and Huehuetenango departments. The security shield seeks to curb the entry of narcotrafficking groups into Guatemala, U.S. news site Los Angeles Press reported.
Joint security operations stepped up on September 3 after hundreds of residents fled from the border town of Amatenango, in the state of Chiapas, Mexico, to the Guatemalan municipality of Cuilco, fearing that their children would be forcibly recruited by organized crime groups operating in the area, France 24 reported.
“Informal crossings along the border have been reinforced and aerial and drone reconnaissance is being carried out in these areas,” Major Anne Marie Argueta, a spokesperson for the Guatemalan Army, told Diálogo on September 30. “These proactive actions prevent incursions into Guatemalan territory by transnational organized crime groups.”
The Guatemalan Armed Forces also deployed its Kaibil Special Forces, a unit of elite soldiers, experts in special operations and intelligence, Mexican television network Telediario reported on September 6.
“The Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) Mexican cartels are fighting for control of key border towns to traffic drugs, arms, and people between the two countries,” InSight Crime, an organization that studies organized crime in Latin America, indicated.
Amid the war these cartels wage for control of the state of Chiapas, residents of the border municipality of Santa Eulalia, in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango, said that armed civilians have set up checkpoints to search vehicles and people “in broad daylight,” Mexican newspaper Milenio reported on September 6.
“We are observing the operations they [the cartels] are carrying out, so that [as of September] we have seized almost 10 tons of drugs,” Guatemalan Defense Minister Major General Henry David Saenz Ramos, told Guatemalan newspaper La Hora. “However, we have not had a single action, of any kind, with our soldiers or with our units in national territory. On the other hand, we have been able to provide coverage and security to the populations bordering the international political boundary with Mexico.”
“We have no indication that narcotraffickers from neighboring countries are settled in border areas,” said Helver Beltetón, deputy director general of the Guatemalan National Civil Police, to Guatemalan daily Prensa Libre. “We cannot deny that they have contacts in these areas, because they are large international cartels, but that they are based in our territory is not the case.”
The CJNG began direct confrontations with the Sinaloa Cartel in 2021 for control of border territories, Argentine news network Infobae reported. In an operation led by the Mexican Armed Force on September 11, 2024, authorities captured Marco Aurelio “N”, the alleged leader of the CJNG, and eight of his collaborators in Villaflores, Chiapas.
“Since the end of July, the Guatemalan Army reinforced the international political boundary between Guatemala and Mexico, with soldiers from the Kaibil Special Forces and Military Police and soldiers from the Fifth Infantry Brigade, increasing patrols and operations in the area,” Maj. Argueta said. “This, due to the displacement of people who entered our territory, fleeing the violence generated by the cartels in their country.”
People displaced, church leaders in Chiapas said during a protest, suffer from lack of basic services and food, at the same time that the cartels force them to take part in checkpoints or to pay fees. “They fled from this, leaving their land and belongings,” Mexican news agency Siete 24 reported.
Researchers from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, Guatemala campus, say that documenting these movements, which happen mostly along the Mexico-Guatemala border, is a challenge as citizens from both countries enter and leave their respective countries without notifying authorities in Guatemala, Prensa Libre reported on September 21.
Ring of Fire officially kicked off on February 4 for an indefinite period, to control border crossings and carry out aerial and ground surveillance, among other actions. Operations cover the entire length of the border between Guatemala and Mexico, extending 200 nautical miles into the Pacific Ocean to monitor the international maritime boundary. Some 500 members of the Guatemalan National Civil Police and 700 members of the Mexican Armed Forces are also deployed in this operation. In its first month of operation, Ring of Fire carried out more than 4,200 operations on land, including 69 at sea, the Guatemalan Ministry of Defense indicated.
