US government workers barred from visiting Acapulco over homicide fears
US government workers barred from visiting Acapulco over homicide fears
State department issues new guidelines restricting travel to Mexican resort city, which is known as one of the worlds deadliest cities due to drug violence
Associated Press in Mexico City
Friday 15 April 2016 17.51 EDT
The US government has barred its employees from traveling to the Mexican resort city of Acapulco, where a rise in homicides attributed to drug gangs has made it one of the worlds deadliest cities in recent years.
The new travel guidelines posted online by the State Department extended a ban that already covered nearly the entire state of Guerrero, where Acapulco is located and which has been a flashpoint of drug violence.
American government employees previously could go to Acapulco as long as they traveled by air instead of land. They are still allowed to visit the Guerrero state resorts of Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo if they fly.
Famous in decades past as a playground for Hollywood stars and other American tourists, Acapulco, a Pacific Coast city of about 700,000 residents, registered 902 homicides last year, according to government statistics. For all of Guerrero, there were 2,106 killings, a 33% increase over the previous year.
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/15/us-government-ban-acapulco-mexico