Play all audios:
Municipal water has been cut off to thousands of residents of Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, as part of a protest that blocked Highway 200 on Friday, local media reported on Sunday. Highway
blockades continued Monday, effectively cutting off communication between the city of Puerto Escondido and points east. Neither state nor federal government officials have issued an
official response to the protest, initiated by the mayor of Santa María Colotepec to support the municipality’s demands regarding some 1,300 hectares of land expropriated in 1970. Mayor
Carmelo Cruz Mendoza warned that his municipality would not give up any land to San Pedro Mixtepec, the other municipality in which Puerto Escondido is located. On Sunday, Cruz and his
followers turned off the city’s water, which comes from Colotepec, the newspaper _El Imparcial_ reported. It also reported that residents of several _colonias_ in Colotepec have rejected the
mayor’s actions and threatened to burn the vehicles being used to block the highway at several locations. Source:_ __El Imparcial_ (sp)