The vacationers were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They got into a shootout and died. Mexico’s president announced new protective measures.
Cancún – Almost a month after the death of two foreign vacationers in the Mexican resort of Tulum, soldiers from a new special unit are now supposed to protect the tourists in the region.
“In a few days, around 1,500 members of the National Guard will be deployed,” announced President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Cancún on Wednesday.
The tourists from Germany and India got caught in a shootout between rival gangs in a bar in Tulum in October and were killed. The Federal Foreign Office then warned Mexico vacationers in the Tulum and Playa del Carmen area on the Caribbean coast to be careful.
“Something like that mustn’t be repeated. We have to prevent that and that’s why there are plans to strengthen security, ”said López Obrador. Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval said the National Guard’s new “Tourist Security Battalion” with 1,445 soldiers will be responsible for the entire Riviera Maya.
The model will later be imitated in other tourist locations. The unit will be based in Tulum and officially start work on December 1st. dpa
