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Mexican President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador thanked Guatemala on Friday for helping the nearly\u00a0600 Mexicans who have crossed into Guatemala to escape drug cartel violence<\/a>, but also minimized the violence that drove them there.<\/p>\n In his first comments since the refugees fled earlier this week, the president went on to add that Mexico is a large country, and like many other parts of the world, \u201cthere are conflicts.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur (political) adversaries want to see that our government is unstable, that violence dominates and our country is being destroyed,\u201d he said. The National Guard would secure the area and the situation would soon be resolved, he said.<\/p>\n A Guatemalan government report said some 580 people had fled violence in the Mexican state of Chiapas, including men, women, children and elderly.<\/p>\n Families who crossed to the Guatemalan municipality of Cuilco<\/a>\u00a0said shootouts had forced them to flee and the cartels had made locals work checkpoints and used them as human shields while they battled their rivals.<\/p>\n Guatemalan President Bernardo Ar\u00e9valo said Wednesday<\/a>\u00a0his administration would coordinate the humanitarian response though there was little sign of it yet. Ar\u00e9valo said his administration was working with the local governments near the border to attend to the Mexicans, \u201cwho are escaping conflict between groups that is taking place on the Mexican side.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, that was more than came from the Mexican side, where authorities did not respond to requests for comment about the situation until Friday.<\/p>\n Two of Mexico\u2019s most powerful cartels from the northern states of Sinaloa and Jalisco have been battling for control of smuggling routes in the area of southern Mexico for more than a year causing multiple displacements.<\/p>\n In June, some 5,000 people were displaced<\/a>\u00a0by violence in another part of Chiapas after armed men set houses on fire in the town of Tila.<\/p>\n In September last year,\u00a0Mexico\u2019s president conceded the cartels had cut off electrical power<\/a>\u00a0in some Chiapas towns near the border with Guatemala, and forbade government workers from coming into the largely rural area to fix power lines.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n