TAPACHULA, Mexico — Attackers threw at least one explosive device at a police station in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, police said on Wednesday, while a wide-scale search continued for 16 police officers who were kidnapped at gunpoint on a local highway.
The attacks highlight a new power struggle between cartels for influence over the state’s police force and control of its drug and immigrant trade.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirmed that the kidnappings were part of a fight between two gangs, saying: “The most common problem today is that the groups are clashing.”
López Obrador said the men worked at a local jail, apparently as guards or administrative staff, although they are officially employed by the state police.
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Originally, the police said that 14 men had been kidnapped from a bus on Tuesday and 17 women employees had been released. But on Wednesday, the police increased the number to 16.
The spread of the cartel conflict in Chiapas would mean an escalation. The state has long faced land, ethnic, political and religious strife, but has been largely spared the drug cartel violence that has ravaged other parts of the country.
The president has taken a sort of paternalistic, non-confrontational stance towards the cartels, saying on Wednesday: “You’d better release them (the kidnapped police officers). If not, I will tell them to their fathers and grandfathers.” .”
Also on Wednesday, police in the border town of Tapachula said two patrol cars were damaged in the explosion outside a police station late Tuesday. There was no immediate information about who threw the explosives, which appeared to be homemade.
More than 1,000 state and federal police officers conducted a land and air search for the missing police officers, who were forced from the bus by gunmen earlier Tuesday.
A video of the kidnapped police officers was posted on social media on Wednesday. In it, one of the victims said the kidnappers had demanded the resignation of at least three state police officers, including the police deputy. One of the cartels operating in Chiapas has accused police officers of favoring a rival gang.
The men in the video did not appear to be tied up, nor did they show any obvious signs of abuse.
The police officers were on their way to the Chiapas capital when they were intercepted by several trucks full of gunmen.
The women in the vehicle were released while the men were taken away.
The kidnapping happened on the highway between Ocozocoautla and Tuxtla Gutierrez, the state capital. Two men who were found near the scene of the crime were arrested by police for questioning.
Violence in Mexico’s border region with Guatemala has escalated in recent months over a territorial dispute between the Sinaloa Cartel, which dominates the area, and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
On June 19, a National Guard officer and a civilian were killed in a confrontation between the military and suspected members of organized crime in Ocozocoautla, near where Tuesday’s kidnapping took place.