Argentina: Children’s painting shows Rosario’s dangerous life

“When I saw my grandson’s homework, I got a lump in my throat,” says Juan Manuel from Argentina. A Drawing, made by seven-year-old Thiago, shows a man in a black hat pointing a gun at a man with his hands raised. The teacher asked the children to describe their daily life in their neighbourhood.

Diego and his family live in Capitan Bermudez Rosario, a city located 300 kilometers northwest of Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. They have ruled there for a long time Drug gangs. But now the crime wave is on the rise in football superstar Lionel Messi’s hometown.

The boy’s grandfather told broadcaster DN that Thiago did not live in a particularly dangerous area and that he had never been attacked, “but he knew what was happening nearby”. The daily violence experienced by residents is a topic of conversation everywhere, says Juan Manuel. He worries that many children may grow up traumatized.

An 11-year-old boy was killed in the shooting

A week ago on Sunday, 11-year-old Maximo Geres was killed while buying a drink at a kiosk with other children in the poor neighborhood of Las Bumitas. The assailants, who arrived in a black car, opened fire on him and his friends. Maximo was hit by several shots, he died instantly, and three children were seriously injured.

Maximo’s father says I know who is responsible. Shortly after the crime, the family went to the drug dealers’ houses and razed them with hammers and iron bars and set them on fire. “Here they sell drugs and poison our children,” Julio Guerrez said on television. He believes the Los Saltinos drug cartel is behind his son’s murder. “We were never threatened and never confused with anyone,” Antonia, Maximo’s aunt, told “La Nacion” newspaper. “We are poor, but what really destroys us is pain.”

Even Messi’s family is threatened

Gang battles over the lucrative cocaine market make Rosario one of Argentina’s most dangerous cities. 64 people have died there so far this year. Members of drug gangs repeatedly attack public buildings, prisons and police stations.

Recently, Lionel Messi’s wife Antonela Roccuzzo’s family has also come under attack. Roguso’s father’s supermarket in Rosario was shot 14 times by unidentified assailants. There they left a note: “Messi, we are waiting for you.”