Advocates for peace in Mexico: US needs to help

More than 50 people gathered in King’s Park in Las Cruces, N.M., awaiting the Caravan for Peace.

Cheers and applause greeted the two buses filled with victims of the ongoing drug war in Mexico.

Each member walked off the bus carrying a poster with a photo of a loved one who was lost in Mexico.

Every photo is a face of the pain and suffering from the violent war.

“This fight is not just aboutnumbers, statistics or what you see on TV or in the movies. It’s aboutthe real pain and suffering, death. The cries for justice, for peace,” Javier Sicilia, Mexican activist and leader of this peace movement, told ABC-7.

Sicilia really took the reins for this movement after his 24-year-old son was slain in Mexico last year.

“I owe it to him because he is an innocent victim of these senselesscrimes. I owe it to all the victims of my country. And I owe it tomyself,” Sicilia said.

Sicilia joins more than 100 people traveling across the country to get their message to Washington, D.C.

They’re fighting for the U.S. to legalize drugs and stop the illegal gun smuggling activity to Mexico.

The group believes these changes would help Mexico bring the drug cartels down and bring peace back to their country.

“We can’t do it in Mexico without the help of the United States.Americans need to be aware of the serious issues going on with drugs,” Sicilia said.

Sicilia told ABC-7 the Mexican government isn’t doing enough to stop the war. He said the government is making it worse by not releasing statistics of all the deaths and murders related to organized crime.

“It’s a crime against humanity. We need to tell the Mexican government, ‘You are behaving like the Nazis.’ They want to erase the history, erasethe bodies, the memories of those who died. The Nazis did the samething with their gas chambers. Mexico is doing it by erasing thedeceased,” Sicilia said.

The Caravan for Peace is scheduled to make it to D.C. on Sept. 12.

They’re stopping at 26 cities along the way, trying to get Americans to hear their pleas and stand behind them.