Drug War Mexico – Narco Violencia

In 2006, president Calderon declared war on the cartels that control the multi-billion dollar drug trade. Some leaders have been eliminated, but their power has not been broken. As of 2024, roughly 400.000 people have been killed and 60.000 have disappeared, making it the most brutal conflict in the Western Hemisphere.

War photographer and cultural anthropologist Teun Voeten, who for 33 years has covered conflicts worldwide, has captured the narco violence in powerful images. Between 2009 and 2024, Voeten visited Juárez, Tijuana, Culiacán, Michocán and Mexico City and many more places. He photographed the bloodshed: murders, victims, funerals, morgues, cops, army and cartel gun men, but also meth cooks, survivors, and the underclass of addicted and homeless persons.

His book features images of a struggling population that tries to maintain its dignity against all odds. Voeten photographed the veneration of Narco Saints, some powerful symbols of consolation, others grim idols worshipped by drug lords. He saw daily life going on, prisoners performing the passion of Christ, families coming together for Dia De Muertos, couples dancing to the tunes of Narco Corridos and civilians protesting the violence.

With introductory essays by renowned Texas-based anthropologist Howard Campbell and celebrated Mexican writer Javier Valdez Cárdenas, who was murdered in 2017, this book is a stark reminder that the Mexican drug violence is a dangerous force that poses enormous challenges to the international world order. The book is completely bilingual, as to reach out to a Latin American and Spanish audience.

Originally, Teun Voeten studied philosophy and cultural anthropology in the Netherlands. He learnt photography by assisting commercial photographers. Since 1990, he has covered the conflicts in Israel, Rwanda, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Liberia, Lebanon, DR Congo, Sudan, Libya, and Ukraine for publications such as Vanity Fair, National Geographic, and Newsweek. He was shot by a sniper in Bosnia, nearly executed by drugged up child soldiers in Sierra Leone, kidnapped at gunpoint by Colombian rebels and survived several Taliban ambushes.

In the 1990s. Voeten lived 5 months with an underground community of crack addicted homeless and wrote the book ‘Tunnel People’. In his book ‘How de Body? Hope and Horror in Sierra Leone’ he describes the violent civil war in that country that nearly cost his live. In 2012, he published the photo book ‘Narco Estado: Drug Violence’ in Mexico.’ Together with film maker Maaike Engels, he made documentaries on the Calais migrant camp in France and a short film on Mexican sicarios.

In 2018, he obtained his PhD with a thesis on the Mexican drug war. His totally rewritten study appeared in 2020 as a Small Wars Journal book titled ‘Mexican Drug Violence: Hybrid Warfare, Predatory Capitalism, and the Logic of Cruelty.’ Recently, Voeten researched drug related crime for the city of Antwerp which resulted in his book ‘Drugs: Antwerpen in de greep van de Nederlandse syndicaten.’ His latest book is ‘The Devil’s Drug. The Global Emergence of Crystal Meth.’

Teun Voeten still works as a reporter and social researcher at large. He is often asked for guest lectures at top universities world-wide and appears frequently on international talk shows. For his expertise on drugs, warfare, and organized crime, he is often consulted by city and national governments and prestigious think tanks. Currently, Voeten is researching the fentanyl crisis on the  West Coast of North America, from Vancouver to Tijuana.