In a rural valley outside Mexico City, generations of families are dying of cancer at rates that cannot be explained by chance alone — the consequence of a deliberate, decades-long decision by authorities to route the capital's waste, pollution, and unwanted infrastructure toward those least positioned to refuse it. The valley became what some now call a sacrifice zone: a place where the logic of power determined that rural lives were worth less than urban convenience. The communities there never consented to this arrangement, and they are only now finding language — and perhaps an audience —
Mexico's Sacrifice Zone: Rural Valley Bears Cost of Capital's Waste in Cancer Surge
Local residents are experiencing elevated cancer rates and deaths attributed to environmental contamination from decades of waste disposal.