NGOs Denounce Dispossession, Displacement, and Criminalization Against Indigenous People in Southern Mexico

Indigenous communities in southern Mexico are facing a "strategy of criminalization" as they defend their territories against alleged forced displacement and dispossession, according to civil organizations and victims. The National Indigenous Congress (CNI) reported that at least four conflicts in the municipalities of Chilón, Ocosingo, Salto de Agua, and Teopisca in Chiapas put Tzeltal families at risk.

These communities claim that infrastructure projects are being imposed without their free, prior, and informed consent. Tavita Jiménez, a CNI representative in Chiapas, detailed an operation on February 12, 2026, in the Jotolá community of Chilón, which resulted in nine families being displaced, homes destroyed, and two movement members detained, with arrest warrants issued for others. The displaced families, totaling 38 adults and 25 children, are now living in precarious conditions without access to housing or employment.

María de Jesús Sánchez, a mother of five, shared her family's experience of dispossession. She stated that her husband, Francisco Moreno Hernández, is being prosecuted for aggravated dispossession, and described the traumatic psychological impact on her children, who suffer from anxiety and sleeplessness. "What the children went through was traumatic, the psychological effects, they couldn't sleep, they are anxious and wonder what will happen," Sánchez said.

Further accusations include the dispossession of workspaces for 39 Tzeltal vendors in the Ocosingo Traditional Market. CNI representatives reported blockades, destroyed stalls, threats, and criminal complaints aimed at weakening their community organization. In Agua Clara, Salto de Agua, ten families reported threats of eviction and harassment, intensified by construction for the San Cristóbal-Palenque highway. Tomás López, a representative of the community, stated, "The problem is a sandbank, which they want to exploit, knowing that they are destroying mother earth and they want to dispossess us."

In San Francisco, Teopisca, residents rejected the San Cristóbal-Teopisca road project, fearing it will damage farmlands, springs, forests, and sacred sites. They also asserted that communities were never consulted according to national and international standards regarding their rights.