Feminicide of Debanhi Escobar/Vulcan Materials
Home > Policy & Economy > Article

Feminicide of Debanhi Escobar/Vulcan Materials

Photo by:   Gobierno de México
Share it!
Paloma Duran By Paloma Duran | Journalist and Industry Analyst - Thu, 06/16/2022 - 12:58

Feminicide of Debanhi Escobar. Deputy Minister of Security Ricardo Mejia announced that the judicial request for the exhumation of Debanhi Escobar’s body will be on June 30. “This is very important because it will allow a group of medical experts to analyze the corpse and reach a consensus of the forensic opinions previously practiced.”

On April 21, the Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC) reported that a body rescued from a water tank in Nuevo León matched the description of Escobar, the 18-year-old girl who disappeared on April 9. The Attorney General's Office autopsy exposed that Escobar's cause of death was due to an intracranial hemorrhage. It is believed that she drowned and did not experience sexual abuse. Nevertheless, the autopsy provided by the family confirmed that she died before falling into the water tank and that there were signs of sexual abuse.

New evidence against the former security minister. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador requested that the evidence against former Security Minister Genaro García Luna be disclosed.  “Yesterday it was announced by the US prosecutor's office that it has some alleged recordings of when García Luna was arrested. We are going to request that this evidence be made public.”

Yesterday, the US Prosecutor's Office presented a document in which García Luna is accused of exercising violence and manipulating witnesses, especially journalists, who spoke out against him. According to the US Attorney's Office, there is a recording of García Luna in which he speaks with Jesús “El Rey” Zambada, former head of the Sinaloa Cartel in 2020 about some of the repressive actions he carried out when he was Minister. Since 2019, Garcia Luna has been incarcerated  in the US and is being accused of receiving millions of dollars in bribery so that the Sinaloa cartel could operate smoothly in the country.

Vulcan Materials. López Obrador said that even though the situation with Vulcan Materials will be taken to international courts, it is not ruled out that the government could reach an agreement with the company. “When the decision was made to completely cancel their project, they accused the government in international courts. We are going to take the situation to the UN and other international tribunals as well. We do not deny that there is a possibility of an agreement, but as long as we are heading this government, we will not allow more material to be extracted from Calica.”

Vulcan Materials has mined limestone in Quintana Roo, Mexico since 1986. However, in 2018, the company-initiated arbitration against Mexico under the USMCA due to the revocation of its port concessions. The company explained that this revocation closed its operations and generated significant monetary losses, so it requested a compensation of US$500 million. According to the company, the Mexican government's actions were unilateral and violated existing agreements. For its part, the Mexican government has proposed several alternatives for the company to make use of the concession without resorting to mining, since this would harm the ecosystem.

On May 23, López Obrador received Thomas Hill, CEO, Vulcan Materials, after tension between the company and the Mexican government escalated following the latter’s accusation that the company extracts and exports limestone to the US without the required permits. However, no agreement was reached. In a report, Vulcan explained that if the company's issues with the government are not resolved, Vulcan is expected to lose between US$80 and US$100 million in 2022.

Photo by:   Gobierno de México

You May Like

Most popular

Newsletter