MEXICO CITY, Mexico – Mexico's drug violence has forced up to 35,000 people to flee their homes, the National Human Rights Commission said Wednesday, May 11, in a report urging the government to protect internally displaced people.
The governmental body lamented that the government lacks a clearcut position on the issue and that it is "not in the public agenda."
The commission documented 1,784 cases of internally displaced people, but it said the number could exceed 35,000 according to reports from municipal and state authorities.
Commission president Luis Raul Gonzalez said the available data did not allow his agency to come up with a solid estimate.
It is the first government-issued report on internally displaced people in Mexico. The commission urged the government to conduct a census to get an exact figure.
The Norwegian Refugee Council, a non-government humanitarian organization, said last year that more than 280,000 people have been displaced within Mexico.
"Violence, insecurity, impunity, the weakness of our rule of law, and the lack of adequate conditions for development for people have caused a considerable number of Mexicans to abandon their homes in various regions," Gonzalez said.
He said people flee to "seek better living conditions, but also often for basic issues such as staying alive."
The report called on the government to establish a public policy to defend the rights of internally displaced people.
Drug-related violence skyrocketed in Mexico after the government deployed tens of thousands of troops in 2006. More than 100,000 people have died or gone missing since then, many of them victims of drug cartel turf wars. – Rappler.com