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    How an isolated group of Mormons got caught up in Mexico's cartel wars

    The deaths of nine women and children has thrust into focus a small religious community and their long history in a remote corner of northern Mexico
    by David Agren in Mexico City Nov 08, 2019 5 minutes
    Friends and relatives mourn the victims who died in the gun attack. Six children and three women – all US citizens – were massacred on dirt road when gunman attacked their convoy. Photograph: José Luis González/Reuters

    Amid the scrubby foothills of Sonora’s Sierra Madre mountains, they farmed pomegranates and pistachios, raised large families and preached a fundamentalist Mormon faith.

    For years, the small community of La Mora also maintained an uneasy peace with the mafia gangs who dominate this part of northern Mexico: identifying themselves at cartel checkpoints and avoiding the region’s lonely dirt roads after dark.

    “We’ve all been stopped on the road – cartel groups just wanting to know who we are,” said Kenneth Miller Jr, a resident of the little town. “We’ve never had to worry about much. We were always warned beforehand if there was stuff going on in the area.”

    But if the Mormons ever thought they would be protected by the US passports which most of them hold, any such illusions.

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