MEXICO CITY – The Mexican Government has announced that federal troops would take over security in an area where vigilante groups and a drugs cartel are clashing.
The “self-defence groups” seized several small towns in the western state of Michoacan over the past week.
They say they are fighting for the freedom of their communities from the notorious Knights Templar cartel.
Mexican Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong urged the vigilantes to lay down their weapons.
But he warned that there would be no tolerance for those who continued fighting.
“Be certain we will contain the violence in Michoacan,” he said after a meeting with state governor Fausto Vallejo in the regional capital, Morelia.
The vigilantes have vowed to rid Michoacan of the Knights Templar cartel
Mr Osorio Chong also encouraged the vigilantes to join the police forces.
But the leader of one of the “self-defence groups,” Estanislao Beltran, rejected that offer.
