An article in Foreign Affairs starts out with the description of finding an "extermination camp" in Mexico where one of the drug cartels was killing kidnapped children and young people, and disposing of their bodies. It adds:
It wasn’t the first one discovered in Mexico in recent years. It wasn’t even the biggest.
Then the article goes on to describe the difficulties Mexico's new President Sheinbaum has in dealing with corruption in her nation. Needless to say, these are manifold.
What is never explained is why cartels want to exterminate large numbers of children and youth. The article presumes the reader understands why cartels view this as important to do. I don't get the rationale.
Were they hostages whose parents have refused to pay ransom? Were they the beloved dependents of people resisting cooperation with the cartels?
Multiple "extermination camps" suggest a need to 'disappear' hundreds of individuals, many of them children. This feels more like the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, or the Nazi's Auschwitz; not the Mafia 86ing a rival or making an example of a bodega owner who won't pay "protection."
