United States recommends not traveling to Sinaloa due to insecurity

The US Department of State recommended that fellow countrymen not travel to Sinaloa because they consider it to be high risk. The level of danger of the entity for Americans has not decreased since November 2018, along with Tamaulipas, Guerrero, Michoacán, and Colima.

The report prepared by consulting Gemes explains that citizens should not travel to Sinaloa because "organized violence is widespread and criminal organizations are based and operating in the state of Sinaloa."As for the employees of the United States Government going to Mazatlan, "you can only travel by air or by sea. They are limited to the Golden Zone and the Historic Center of the city, and must use direct routes when traveling to those places and to the airport and bus terminals," the document cites. For the northern zone, the State Department also restricted the stay of American officials.

As for Los Mochis and the port of Topolobampo, it recommended that "they can only travel by air or by sea. They are restricted to the city and the port, and must use direct routes when traveling between these places and to and from the airport."

Constant insecurity

For the State Department, Sinaloa maintains the highest level of danger since November 2018, even above Veracruz, Guanajuato, and Guadalajara, entities where insecurity rates have increased exponentially. They also consider the Sinaloan entity riskier compared to countries such as Colombia and Brazil, two nations that have had severe problems of insecurity.

The reason why Americans would be at risk in Sinaloa, according to the report, is an organized crime; while in Colima, Tamaulipas, Guerrero, and Michoacán, which are the other entities classified with the highest level of danger, the motive is a crime.

At the beginning of 2018, the Governments of Canada and the United States issued travel alerts to Sinaloa as unsafe. As in the recent report, they classified it with the maximum risk level, although Los Mochis, Topolobampo and Mazatlan, in its Golden Zone, was disengaged in the North American alert; while in the declaration of Canada, Mazatlán was the only municipality that was unlinked [https://ito.mx/Ll2l]. In its report, the Canadian Government pointed to a growing criminal activity and little response from the authority for the arrest of criminals.

Unsafe Mexico

The Gemes report indicates that eleven entities are classified at level three; that is, the second most dangerous, among them the neighboring states of Sinaloa: Sonora, Nayarit, Chihuahua, and Durango, where the Americans are asked to reconsider the trip.

Another sixteen states of the Mexican Republic were categorized with the second level of risk, highlighting Veracruz, Guanajuato and the area of ​​the peninsula, where executions and operations of organized crime have become more notorious in recent months.

Measures and recommendations

In addition to the above, the US Department of State recommends that its government employees not travel between cities after dark, do not take taxis on the street and must rely on vehicles dispatched, including services based on applications such as Uber, or those of the regulated taxi stands.

They are also asked not to drive from the United States-Mexico border to or from the interior parts of the Republic, with the exception of one-day trips within Baja California, and between Nogales and Hermosillo, on Mexico Highway 15.

Likewise, it recommended to its nationals that to attend the travel alert, they should contact consulates and operators of the tourism industry to inform themselves assertively about the situation of the destination to which they are going.

According to the report prepared by consultancy Gemes, the State Department introduced a new risk indicator for public travel alerts. This specifies the risk of kidnapping and taking hostages.

In this regard, Mexico is at level two, with a tendency to increase precautions.

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