To highlight the forced displacement that They live in the Félix Gómez ejido in the municipality of Pitiquito, SonoraAdrián Lebarón and Julián Lebarón will visit the place, accompanied by the searcher mother Cecilia Patricia Flores Armenta.
The members of the LeBarón family, which was a victim of the massacre of 9 of its members, 3 women and 6 minors, in November 2019, announced through their X account (formerly Twitter) that they will travel to the area where the abandonment of families has been reported as a result of the violence they have been subjected to.
“Tomorrow we will visit the Félix Gómez police station in Pitiquito, Sonora, a place that has been abandoned, we seek to make visible those places that hurt us. Lands that have been abandoned because entire families want to live in peace, without fear,” Adrián LeBarón posted on his personal account on the afternoon of Monday, April 22.
For his part, Julián LeBarón wrote on the morning of this Tuesday, April 23: “We are all responsible for the silence; of abandoning our brothers to the wolves.”
Adrián LeBaron published a video message, moments before leaving Santa Ana for Pitiquito, accompanied by Julián LeBarón and the searching mother Ceci Patricia Flores.
“From Santa Ana, Sonoraheading to Pitiquito, accompanied by Julián and the others, we are heading to Pitiquito to highlight news that hurt us a lot, that there is forced displacement in Pitiquito, in Félix Gomez.”
The activist mentioned that these types of situations reopen the wound left by the massacre of his family in Bavispe and the forced displacement of the families who lived in the area where the tragedy occurred, almost five years ago.
“I just want to tell you that every time this happens, it relives what my people, my people, my family suffered after the massacre of November 4. Also La Mora, in Bavispe, suffered forced displacement, more than 60 percent of our native families from La Mora, Bavispe, were displaced,” he commented.
In which states is there forced displacement?
He revealed that this not only happens in Sonora, but also It happens in many places in Chihuahua and he stated that it is his obligation to highlight such situations.
“And Chihuahua has many towns, I am very close to many towns that have experienced forced displacement and it is my job and my obligation to continue exposing this and we are going to continue supporting these towns, those who suffer these massacres, this indolence, and we are going to expose it.”
What happened to the LeBaron family?
On November 4, 2019, according to the chronology detailed by Alfonso Durazo Montaño, then Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection at the federal level and by Joel LeBarón, that day in the morning, 17 members of the LeBaron family left the town of La Mora, municipality of Bavispe, Sonora: three adult women and fourteen minors, their children; all in a caravan of three SUV-type vehicles. Two of the groups They were heading to the municipality of GaleanThe third, driven by Rhonita Maria Miller, was headed to Phoenix, Arizona, at whose airport her husband would arrive.
The vehicles were intercepted around at 1:00 p.m. Mountain Time (8:00 p.m. GMT) on a dirt road that connects the communities of San Miguelito in Sonora and Pancho Villa in Chihuahua, by an armed groupallegedly from organized crime, who opened fire on the three vehicles.
The attack caused the explosion and fire of one of the vehicles andto the death of 9 of the 14 people who were traveling, three adult women and six children, as well as injuries of varying degrees to at least six other minors, as well as one minor who was initially missing.
Disappeared and displaced to northern Mexico
Forced displacements are not officially counted, but they commonly follow the wave of violence and the forced disappearance of the inhabitants of the places from which families move.
According to official information, In Sonora, from 2015 to date at least 4,500 people have been registered disappeared, occupying sixth place nationally in terms of the number of cases, although search groups suggest that the figure is much higher.
The Citizen Committee for Security estimates that in the last nine years 4,560 men and women have disappeared. In 2021 there were 191 reports of missing people; In 2022, the record is 261 and in 2023 there were 250, while as of March 10, 2024 there are 35 cases.
Officially, it is said that only 60 percent of people reported missing They have not been located, while 40 percent have been found alive. In both cases, the searcher groups say they have other data, since the official data leaves out the black number of people who are not reported by their families for fear of reprisals.
