cut off from the believers since January, a Christian news agency reported Wednesday, May 30.
Compass Direct News said the April 23 agreement calls for local authorities of the town of Los Pozos to withdraw a threat to expel 65 Christians and restore electricity and water services of several Protestant families.
In addition evangelicals would no longer be forced to pay for festivals of “traditionalist Catholics” who practice a mixture of indigenous ritual and Roman Catholicism.
Evangelical pastor and attorney Esdras Alonso Gonzalez was quoted as saying that although
Protestants of the local Alas de Aguila church were pleased that traditionalist ‘Catholic caciques’ no longer forced them to participate in the ‘saints’ day’ festivals, they regretted that water lines had had not been restored.
RESPECTING AGREEMENT
"Everyone in the municipality is respecting the agreement, except in the matter of water – it’s horrible. We don’t know when they’re going to restore the water; the brethren have not been able to get good information," he reportedly said.
Chiapas state officials brokered the agreement between the Protestants and the traditionalist Catholics of Los Pozos. Alonso said state officials are responsible for ensuring that "local town bosses" fulfill terms of "the pact," Compass Direct News reported.
Chiapas Secretary of Government Jorge Antonio Morales Messner reportedly said through an assistant that his office was looking into the matter, while other officials refused to comment.
Meanwhile, Protestant Christians have to walk to a distant, apparently dirty, well. Maria Elena Gomez Ton, a 27-year-old mother of four, told Compass Direct News she has been walking about a mile (1.6 kilometer) three times a day for water. Carmela Santis Lopez, 38, of Los Pozos, was quoted as saying her children had become "ill from lack of bathing and washing with water from a muddy well."
"ACCEPTING CHRIST"
Local Christians have said they have been punished for "accepting Christ" in their lives. Previously Los Pozos town bosses had allegedly prohibited outside Christians from visiting the Protestants, disrupted Alas de Aguila church services and stopped visitors to the church by making threats. Alonso reportedly said such harassment has stopped since the April 23 agreement.
Elsewhere in Chiapas, Christians arriving from Iraq were reportedly taken into custody. Last week, three men and a woman believed to be Chaldean Christians were detained at a migration checkpoint in the city of Tapachula, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of the Guatemala border, The Associated Press news agency quoted the National Immigration Institute as saying.
Authorities did not reveal more details, citing national security. Thousands of undocumented migrants bound for the United States cross Mexico’s porous southern border with Guatemala
on a daily basis.
While many try to reach Central and South America, Iraqi Chaldean Christians frequently try to enter the US through Mexico, claiming they face persecution in Iraq. In January 11 Iraqi Christians were reportedly detained in the northern city of Monterrey en route to California, which has a sizable Chaldean community. AP quoted the Immigration Institute as saying it would not repatriate them.
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