A painful education on crime.
Zac Steimle
When the hit men rolled into town on Thursday, no one understood what was happening, everyone was running because they were shooting with machine guns! I thought they would enter all the houses to kill everyone! We were all very scared.
They killed one man and injured three innocent people. A boy who was still in bed was hit in his arm with a bullet, another one of my cousins was shot in his leg and a son of my cousin was shot in the back, the latter was agonizing pain. The three of them were taken in a truck to Lagarto and then an ambulance took them to the Ríoverde Health Center later they were taken to the hospital in Esmeraldas city. A very long painful journey.
There is a wake for deceased at his grandma’s house here in Las Delicias but only his closest family attended, almost no one wanted to accompany them, I feel very sorry for them! We are terrified! Tomorrow no one wants to go to his burial because the grave yard and criminals are in San Francisco, they might take him to be buried Lagarto! The hitmen said that they are going to return for the cousin of the deceased who escaped into the jungle and they did not get him. The one who escaped and the deceased were in bad way, they are supposedly part of a gang and who had been part of a crime in the past, and a relative of someone previous murdered from Colombia has paid 10,000 to the hitmen of San Francisco to kill these two of the Delicias.
We pray that this situation will improve. The saddest thing is that the gang is from San Francisco! A hit man married a cousin I don’t know, they were living in San Francisco, they have even recruited some of my boys! Teaching my former students how to kill!!! There is no respect for relatives, and friends! In the past, criminals only killed the person with whom they had their problem, now they arrive and shoot wherever they are, no matter where they are and with whom they are!
This is not even mentioning the situation in the city. In Esmeraldas they say that there are 17 killed per week!! There is no longer any respect for people’s lives! I never imagine something like this would happen in my communities!
Let’s pray for God to have mercy on us.