Sawt Falasteen - Mexico's violence-hit Guadalajara to host World Cup games

Now, Guadalajara is looking ahead nervously to the World Cup this summer, in which it will host four games.

Authorities are turning to technology to keep its slice of the planet's premier sporting event safe, as Mexico is co-hosting the tournament with the United States and Canada.

Drones, anti-drone equipment and AI-driven video surveillance systems are some of the tools the state government of Jalisco -- of which Guadalajara is the capital -- will deploy to provide security.

The preparations come as Jalisco endures an epidemic of disappearances and the discoveries of clandestine graves, with Guadalajara having more of its residents go missing due to brutal drug-related violence than any other city in Mexico.

On Sunday, Nemesio "El Mencho" Oseguera, leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and one of the most wanted men in Mexico and the United States, was killed in a military operation some 130 kilometers (80 miles) from Guadalajara.

The cartel reacted with fury, triggering gunfire with security forces that left at least 57 people dead across Mexico -- both soldiers and cartel members -- as well as highway blockades in 20 states.

Following the burning of buses and businesses, authorities suspended football games in Guadalajara and the central state of Queretaro.

Football's world governing body FIFA declined to comment on the violence in one of the cup's host cities.

On Monday, the streets of Guadalajara remained semi-empty, as businesses stayed shut as classes were suspended in Jalisco. Schools also shut down in a dozen other states.

Days before, state security officials had reported that Guadalajara was "peaceful."

- 'Grotesque situation' -

Jalisco is one of the states with the most disappeared people in all of Mexico, with 12,575 reported missing, according to official statistics. More than half of the cases come from Guadalajara's metropolitan area.

Disappearances are driven by forced recruitment for criminal groups, said Carmen Chinas, an academic at the University of Guadalajara.

Family members of disappeared people have unearthed hundreds of clandestine graves as they look for their loved ones.

Some activists have expressed dismay over Guadalajara's hosting of the World Cup.

"I don't think there is anything to celebrate. It seems like a pretty grotesque situation to me," said 26-year-old Carmen Ponce, whose brother Victor Hugo was disappeared in 2020.

"The country celebrates goals while we are here searching," she said at a field where last September she and her mother found buried plastic bags containing the remains of five people.

People are also jittery about hosting World Cup games in a city that has been through so much.

Juan Carlos Contreras, who oversees the city's security camera network, told AFP there could be protests by residents furious with the government as they search for their missing loved ones.

- 'Economic blow' -

Missael Robles, a 31-year-old tour guide from Guadalajara, told AFP that he's cancelled as many as 25 tours since the Oseguera violence exploded on Sunday.

"The economic blow is a big deal," he added.

Authorities have discovered properties used by criminal groups just a few kilometers from the Akron stadium which is due to host World Cup games.

Less than two kilometers (one mile) from the sporting complex, the state prosecutor's office raided a house and arrested two people accused of kidnapping.

AFP saw chains wrapped around metal bars in the abandoned building, with the Akron stadium visible in the distance.

Jose Raul Servin, who has been looking for his son Raul since he disappeared in April of 2018, fears that tourists coming for the World Cup could be preyed on by crime gangs.

"We don't want anything to happen," he said, "like what's happened to us."

Servin remembers with nostalgia that his son was a football fan. "If he were here, he would be happy about the World Cup," he said.

Z.AlNajjar--SF-PST