San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico.
September 14, 2026
Bulletin No. 15
• The Government of Chiapas is masterful at concealing the violence that persists in the region, in collusion with organized crime
The Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) has documented, to date, 24,510 victims of internal forced displacement (IFD) in Chiapas, all of whom are included in the investigation conducted by the Border Region Working Group, which was published in the report *Chiapas: The Pending Peace*;¹ and in our annual report: *Chiapas, in the Spiral of Armed and Criminal Violence*.²
In the border region, particularly in the municipalities of Amatenango de la Frontera, Frontera Comalapa, and Chicomuselo, a critical situation of armed violence and territorial control by criminal groups persists, which has caused the displacement of hundreds of families from 2021 to the present. Many of these people remain in a state of forced displacement, without access to safe shelters, without humanitarian assistance, and exposed to further attacks during their journey. The absence of a comprehensive government response—and the lack of effective enforcement of the Law on the Prevention and Response to Internal Displacement, whose regulations have inexplicably remained unenforced since 2012—exacerbates the vulnerability of these communities, which continue to lack official recognition and clear pathways for their protection and eventual return.
These figures highlight the magnitude of a problem that the government continues to deny, while maintaining an inadequate response and pretending to assist the victims, without effectively guaranteeing their rights, their protection, or the conditions necessary for a safe and dignified return. There are still people experiencing both full and intermittent forced displacement, as well as communities living under siege and in constant vulnerability to organized crime groups that operate in collusion with municipal and state authorities and federal security forces.
Among these are the Pakal Immediate Reaction Forces; the State Guard under the command of the Secretary of Public Security; the Regional Prosecutor’s Offices subordinate to the Attorney General of the State of Chiapas; as well as the Mexican Army, under the command of the federal government. This coordination among armed actors and authorities allows the violence to continue and deepens the humanitarian crisis faced by displaced communities.
We have recently documented the situation of families from the Nueva Independencia ejido, in the municipality of Ángel Albino Corzo, who were displaced between the second half of 2024 and early 2025 as a result of the violence that erupted in the area and intensified following the election of Mayor Manuel de Jesús Moreno Fernández of the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico. Testimonies indicate that the mayor is allegedly providing protection to a political power group known as “Los Robleros,” which those affected claim has direct ties to organized crime figures.
At the same time, we remember the victims of the DFI in Nueva Palestina, in the municipality of Ocosingo, who, from December 2021 to the present, have been in the same situation, without receiving adequate emergency humanitarian assistance and without effective access to justice; this highlights the lack of a comprehensive and timely response from the authorities to address and guarantee their rights.
Also, the forced displacement of the Lacandon Maya people, which occurred on September 13, 2023, in the community of Lacanjá Chansayab, located within the boundaries of the Lacandon Zone’s communal lands, in the municipality of Ocosingo. Three years after these events, the defenders of the territory remain displaced, stripped of their homes, their land, and their communal property.
Particularly serious is the fact that the authorities refuse to recognize their status as persons in a situation of forced displacement and reclassify them as persons in a situation of vulnerability. This action obscures the violence that caused their displacement, disregards the State’s obligations toward the victims, and hinders their access to measures of care, protection, reparation, and restitution of their rights.
In this same way, people from Tzanembolom, in the municipality of Chenalhó, find themselves in a situation of forced internal displacement. In the first half of 2024, they were forced to leave their place of origin due to their refusal to join or collaborate with the group known as “Los Herreras.” To date, these families continue to face vulnerable conditions, and the necessary conditions to ensure a safe and dignified return, with guarantees of non-repetition, have not been established.
Finally, we recall the DFI incident that took place in February 2026 in the Jotolá ejido, Chilón, Chiapas, whose victims are members of the National Indigenous Congress, who have been facing this serious crisis for just over seven months.
Given this situation, we are concerned by the statements made by Governor Eduardo Ramírez Aguilar, who claims that forced displacement no longer exists in Chiapas, that 95% of displaced people have returned, and that those who have not returned have chosen not to do so because they have decided to live elsewhere. This assertion portrays displacement as if it were a matter of personal choice, obscuring the conditions and causes of the violence, insecurity, and lack of safeguards.
We are also concerned about the government’s attitude and its distortion of reality for political gain, as it projects the image of a peaceful, tranquil state free of serious violence. However, the data available to Frayba and, above all, the testimonies of survivors reveal a reality that tells a different story.
It is shameful and extremely serious to reduce a situation involving serious human rights violations—such as forced displacement—to a mere percentage, as if the multiple impacts accompanying these events could be captured solely in tables and figures. Forced displacement entails, among other consequences, the loss of land, property, means of subsistence, and community ties, affecting primarily women, children, and older adults; it also represents an abrupt interruption of life plans. This lack of sensitivity is even more serious when it comes from a government that defines itself as humanistic.
We remind the government that the Mexican State has signed and ratified binding regional and international agreements, and that it has a Law on the Prevention and Response to Internal Displacement which, to date, remains unenforced. In addition, there has been a deliberate failure to enact the internal regulations necessary to implement that law. Instead of complying with this legal framework and ensuring its implementation, there is an attempt to enact a new law that would be ineffective.
Therefore, Frayba urgently calls on the authorities to comprehensively address situations of internal displacement, guarantee adequate and timely assistance to those affected, and create the necessary conditions for them to return to their homes safely, with dignity, and with full respect for their human rights.
Original text published by Frayba on September 15th, 2026.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.