President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that the cartels have cut off electrical power in some towns, and forbidden government workers from coming in to the largely rural area to fix power lines.
He said the cartels were fighting for control of the drug smuggling routes that lead into southern Mexico from Central America. But the area around the town of Frontera Comalapa is also a valuable route for smuggling immigrants, thousands of who have clambered aboard trains to reach the U.S. border.
The Sinaloa cartel is fighting the Jalisco New Generation cartel for control of the area, located in a rural, mountainous area north of the border city of Tapachula.