Living under threat in Rosario: how do Peruvians live in a city ravaged by violence?

At the beginning of the century, José Castillo left Peru and came to rosary beads in search of tranquility. He found a nice, medium-sized place in the city of Santa Fé, where he could get around safely and without the traffic of Lima. “It was a quiet square, very pleasant to work in,” he remembers.

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For two decades he drove around the city. He says that as a taxi driver he witnessed the dramatic change in Rosário’s life. Those first peaceful postcards seem distant to him today. Images of a recent tragedy are superimposed on them.

On the night of March 7, an explosion interrupted his sleep. When she went out into the street she found her car on fire, with flames exceeding two meters. From one moment to the next he was without his work tool. In the week of the attack, two taxi drivers, a minibus driver and a gas station employee were murdered. Additionally, a police station was shot at. The crisis led to two days of total paralysis in the city.

These attacks occurred after the penitentiary tightening in Santa Fé prisons ordered by provincial governor Maximiliano Pullaro. The notes found at the crime scenes, signed by the city’s drug dealers, were addressed to him. They demanded that he retract his punitive actions.

Members of the Federal Police stand guard at a checkpoint in “La Granada”, a violent neighborhood of Rosário, Santa Fé province, Argentina, on October 1, 2020. (Photo by MARCELO MANERA / AFP) (MARCELO MANERA/ )

“It could have happened to any of the 4,500 taxi drivers in the city, it only happened to me. We’ve never seen what’s happening now,” Castillo says sadly.

The researcher and professor at the National University of Rosário, Marco Iazzetta, states that in the last two years the randomness of violence began to be noticed. Currently, victims no longer only come from clashes between gangs, but can be civilians with no connection to the illegal market.

However, he finds some rationality in the attacks. “The victims were people who provide essential services. Their deaths end up paralyzing the city. With this, the gangs seek to show the State that they are the ones in charge of the streets,” he says.

Since the attack, Castillo has been seeking answers to his case, but there are still no arrests. He is outraged by the inaction. He highlights that there are many sectors involved in the criminal network. “I can name 50 bunkers (drug sales outlets). And not just on the outskirts. They also exist in central areas. We met taxi drivers. “Are you going to tell me the police won’t come?” he says.

For almost ten days he did not leave the house. He confesses that it was difficult for him to react to the loss of the taxi. Given the lack of income and the stress of the attack, he chose to return to Peru in the coming weeks. “I’m also making this decision for my teenage son, who doesn’t want to go out thinking that something is going to happen again”, he says worriedly.

José Castillo found his car on fire, with flames exceeding two meters. (Photo: Óscar Bermeo Ocaña)

The homicide rate in Rosario is five times higher than the national average in Argentina. In 2023, this city closed with an average of 22 crimes per 100 thousand inhabitants.

Chiclayana Yolanda Senisse has been a nurse at the Clemente Álvarez emergency room for 15 years. The most seriously injured in the city are transferred to this hospital. Senisse remembers that when she started, most patients came from traffic accidents. In recent years this trend has changed.

“Today there are more cases resulting from shootings. We had rooms full of people injured by firearms. The hospital is witnessing increased violence,” she says.

In December 2023, they fired at the facade of the health center from a motorcycle. The bullet passed inches away from a guard. The attackers also left a note addressed to Governor Pullaro. “Stop picking on important prisoners,” the letter said.

As a result of this event, the hospital reduced admissions, doubled police presence and installed panic buttons. “It’s harrowing to work like this. You don’t know if you could end up in the crossfire”, says the nurse.

Teachers demand better safety conditions on the streets. (Photo: Óscar Bermeo Ocaña)

A study by the Financial Intelligence Research Foundation (Finint) revealed at least 15 groups operating in the city. Los Monos, the Alvarado clan, the gang led by the Peruvian Rodríguez Granthon, the Funes clan, Olga Tata Medina, are cited as the most important.

Researcher Marco Iazzetta indicates that this fragmentation triggers violence because there is a struggle for the occupation of territories. “There is no group that is hegemonic. They are micromarketing oriented. They are rustic groups if we compare them to large international cartels.”

For the expert, the internal precariousness of these gangs generates violence that is unsophisticated and at the same time excessive. “The killers are usually minors, with little experience. They are hired for the occasion, they are not part of a structure. One day they might work for one, another for another,” he explains.

Precisely, last Thursday the alleged killer of Bruno Bussanich, a gas station employee murdered on March 9, was captured. The detainee is 15 years old and was placed at the disposal of the Juvenile Court. The Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, announced that she will send an imputability bill to Congress, with which she will seek to ensure that minors who commit these types of crimes can be judged with the same parameters as adults.

The intimidating story continued this week with four attacks on public transport buses and a threat to football player Ángel Di María’s inner circle. “Tell your son Ángel not to return to Rosario because otherwise we will ruin everything by killing a family member,” said the letter thrown from a car in front of the private neighborhood where the athlete’s family lives.

Although Minister Bullrich tried to explain this fact as a “war between fans”, the subsequent arrest of the couple who carried out the threat ruled out this hypothesis. According to sources from the Ministry of Security, there was a certain connection between the detainees and the Los Monos drug gang. However, the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office indicated that there is still no evidence to support this version.

Rosario has become the most dangerous city in Argentina due to clashes between drug gangs. (Photo: AFP)

The wave of violence worried Pope Francis himself. On Tuesday, the Supreme Pontiff disseminated a message addressed to the community of Rosário. “Without the complicity of a sector of political, police, judicial, economic and financial power, it would not be possible to reach the situation in which Rosário finds itself”, he warned and asked that politicians follow a path of “consensus and dialogue” to find solutions. .

For Iazzetta, the violence also shows the State’s inability to guarantee order in this city. “Here criminal groups impose conditions on the police. “This is an anomaly,” he says.

Just like hospitals, schools were not spared from being targeted by threats. In recent weeks, messages containing ammunition have been found on the doors of some educational centers. For this reason, teaching unions asked the provincial government to create safer environments to continue their activities.

“We have to rethink the ways of living. If you have a child who went to school alone, now you have to pick him up and bring him back”, says Peruvian nurse Yolanda Senisse. She says that young people are no longer able to go out peacefully at night, as she did in the 90s, when she fell in love with Rosário and settled down to study Nursing. “I was returning at dawn. Unfortunately today this is a luxury”, she concludes.

Source: Elcomercio