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Ontarians staying in Mexico are in disbelief after tensions between cartels and the military began to escalate Sunday morning.<\/p>\n
Puerto Vallarta, in the Mexican state of Jalisco, is under a shelter in place. Criminal groups have set up roadblocks, lit local businesses on fire and gunshots have been heard in several cities across southwestern Mexico. The violence was triggered after ‘El Mencho,’ the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, was killed during a clash with military special forces.<\/p>\n
Port Stanley, Ont., resident Susan Merucci, who is staying at a hotel in Puerto Vallarta, says she was \u201cflabbergasted\u201d by the situation, especially as she\u2019s been visiting Mexico with her husband for more than 32 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just unbelievable,\u201d she told CBC Toronto Sunday. \u201cWe’ve never had a problem in all of the time that we’ve been coming down here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Government of Canada issued regional advisories for parts of Mexico Sunday and advised that travellers \u201cexercise a high level of caution.\u201d The federal government is \u201cclosely monitoring the situation,\u201d Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Merucci has been in Mexico since December and will remain there until April, when she\u2019s supposed to fly back after avoiding the Canadian winter.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s definitely eerie and scary, because normally you see people on the street and the streets are full of buses, cars and taxis,\u201d she said. \u201c[Now] it’s just like a ghost town.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Fire](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771809608_360_default.jpg\")
Port Stanley, Ont., resident Susan Merucci, who is staying at a hotel in Puerto Vallarta, says she was \u201cflabbergasted\u201d by the situation, especially as she\u2019s been visiting Mexico with her husband for more than 32 years.\u00a0 (Submitted by Susan Merucci)<\/p>\n
Merucci says grocery stores a few blocks down from their hotel have been targeted.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is pretty scary here, especially when we don’t even know what’s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Robert McBride, who is a Torontonian staying at a hotel in Puerto Vallarta, there\u2019s some anxiety and uncertainty.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard a bit of an explosion. And then I see really thick black smoke just billowing all over the place. So that set off an alarm bell for sure,\u201d he told CBC Toronto Sunday.<\/p>\n
McBride was supposed to come back to Toronto Sunday, after a three-week vacation, but his flight was one of many cancelled. He was rebooked to fly back on March 8, but McBride said that wasn\u2019t going to work.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually had to cancel my flight and get a refund. And now I [have] to try and find a way out of here,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was an arduous process that really resulted in nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing that can\u2019t be resolved.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement on social media, the Grupo Aeroportuario del Pac\u00edfico (GAP) said internal operations and safety within facilities were not impacted at Puerto Vallarta International Airport.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe airport is under the protection of personnel from the National Guard (GN) and the Ministry of National Defense (SEDENA), as part of ongoing coordination efforts with federal authorities,\u201d the GAP said.<\/p>\n
WATCH | Why tensions are rising in Mexico, as explained by CBC News:![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771809609_725_default.jpg\")
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Top cartel boss killed as violence engulfs Puerto Vallarta and several states, Mexico says<\/p>\n
Violence roiled several states across Mexico, including in Jalisco and its coastal city of Puerto Vallarta, as Mexican authorities confirmed that the leader of one of the country’s most powerful criminal organizations had died following a clash with special forces operatives.<\/p>\n
But, it noted airlines have cancelled all international operations and most domestic flights to the airport.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe urge passengers and users to remain calm and follow all instructions provided by airport personnel at all times,\u201d the statement reads. \u201cGrupo Aeroportuario del Pac\u00edfico recommends that passengers traveling through Puerto Vallarta Airport remain in contact with their airlines for updates regarding changes to their itineraries.\u201d<\/p>\n
Toronto Metropolitan University professor emeritus Paul Knox, who specializes in Latin American politics and society, said Mexico has been undergoing a transition from a one-party state to a pluralist system for the past 40 years \u2014 a shift that has freed central control of the state and allowed criminal organizations to control regions.<\/p>\n
But pressure from the U.S. to crack down on the organizations has created the ongoing situation, Knox said.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, if you’re as powerful and as ruthless as these organizations are, you don’t take that kind of thing lightly,\u201d he told CBC Toronto Sunday. \u201cThis is the cartel resisting these efforts by the Mexican forces to exert control. It’s by no means certain how this is going to play out.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Knox, the cartels have been known to penetrate places such as hotels and use staff information to carry out robberies and kidnappings.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven in quiet times, there’s always a heightened risk,\u201d he said. \u201cNow there is definitely a need to be a lot more vigilant about what you do, where you go, when you do it. Really watching travelling [in the] dark and really thinking carefully about traveling outside these cities.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMexico would like the tourist dollars to keep coming, but they also don’t want to be having to make arrangements for a whole lot of bodies to be flown out,\u201d he said. \u201cMexican culture is amazing, one of the world’s great cultures, frankly, and I just think we need to keep that in our thoughts and Mexicans in our hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 5 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,3302],"class_list":["post-493097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}