'The gangs never used to kill children, now they do': how cocaine created Argentina's first narcocity
Harriet Barber in Rosario.
Data and visuals by Ana Lucía González Paz, Lucy Swan & Harvey Symons. Additional photographs by Valerio Bispuri
Thu 13 June 2024 at 6:15 am GMT-5·8-min read
Emma Jérez cries as she attends a march demanding justice after the murder of her cousin Máximo Jérez, 11, killed the previous weekend by gunmen in Rosario, Argentina, 10 March 2023.
Máximo Jérez was not on any hitlist. On his way home from a birthday party, the 11-year-old stopped to buy juice from a small store in the Los Pumitas district of Rosario, Argentina, unaware that narcos embroiled in a turf war were also on their way. Witnesses say the gangsters showered bullets from a car, killing Máximo and injuring three other children.
“The scene was a disaster, a bloodbath,” says Antonia Jérez, Máximo’s aunt. “Children were cowering on the floor, crying. One was shot in the face, a toddler in the shoulder. Máximo was shot in the back. His last words were: ‘Mummy, Daddy.’” Máximo’s death in March 2023 rocked Argentina and sent a message across its most drug-embattled city: as the kingpins vie for control – driven in part by increasing demand from Europe – anyone could become their next victim.
Rosario, an inland river port city, has been ensnared by gang violence for decades. Its location is of strategic importance, sitting along the country’s main agricultural transport channel. Shiopments from cocaine-producing Peru and Bolivia funnel down the Paraguay-Paraná waterway, switching boats in Rosario and other ports, before continuing to Europe and Africa.
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