![\"Sinaloa\"](\"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/11\/sinaloa.jpg?w=620\")
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The capital of the Mexican state of Baja California Sur is named La Paz, or Peace, and it’s garnered a reputation over the years for its tranquility, whale watching, and sunset dining in\u00a0restaurants along the coastal boardwalk.\u00a0For a long time it\u00a0seemed like La Paz was immune to the drug violence that has plagued the nearby states of Sinaloa and Sonora \u2014 across the Gulf of California \u2014 or further north in the border city of Tijuana.<\/p>\n
Not any more.<\/p>\n
“La Paz is no longer La Paz, it lost its name after these events,” said Gerardo Z\u00fa\u00f1iga Pacheco, the La Paz correspondent for the Tijuana-based weekly magazine\u00a0Zeta<\/em>, renowned for it’s coverage of the drug war.<\/p>\n Zu\u00f1iga was referring to a\u00a014 month period during which there\u00a0were at least 183 murders in La Paz, culminating with 23 dead in August 2015, and 29 more in September. The city of around 200,000 people was used to a maximum of\u00a0about one or two murders\u00a0a month.<\/p>\n The problem, it appeared, lay in who controlled the transit of illegal drugs through the city\u00a0which had long been in the hands of the Sinaloa cartel but had become a matter of competition following the capture of the group’s\u00a0leader \u2014\u00a0Joaqu\u00edn “El Chapo” Guzm\u00e1n \u2014 in February 2014. It got even worse after he escaped in July this year.<\/p>\n