Marianne Clift, a 68-year-old Canadian, was the victim of an assault at a rental house in the community of Bucerías, Nayarit. The thieves, apparently a man and a woman, beat the woman until she lost consciousness.
The event is gaining international attention because the Canadian press has denounced insecurity that prevails in Mexico.
Originally from Sarnia, a town in southwestern Ontario, Canada, Clift traveled to Bucerías with her husband to rest for a while, in a house they rented in the tourist area that is located halfway between Puerto Vallarta and the Riviera of Nayarit.
This was not her first trip, since Clift and her husband – like many Canadians – spend long periods on these beaches in the Mexican Pacific, and has a relative who already lives in Mexico.
“I was very excited, it was a beautiful house,” said Cift, who traveled from Canada to Puerto Vallarta on February 4.
On the night of the 18th, Marianne was left alone in that house because her husband had to return to Canada because of a work issue. At night, when she had gone to sleep, a man and a woman breached the security of the 3-meter fence that surrounds the building and entered the property.
“I thought I was in a nightmare, but there was a man choking me and I just could not scream,” Clift narrated about what happened.
At some point, the man removed his hand from her neck and the woman began to ask for help. The assailant hit her so hard that she was left unconscious and caused severe bruising and bleeding around her eyes, cheeks, and neck.
Upon awakening, the assailants had already left. They took her cell phone, money, cards, house keys, passport, and other valuables. Clift went out to the street to ask for help and walked to a neighbors home, where emergency services arrived to take care of her injuries. She received six stitched on her cheek where her face was slashed with a knife.
Marianne Clift denounced the assault before the local authorities in Nayarit and resorted to the consulate of her country to replace her passport and be able to return to Sarnia, where her family was waiting for her.
“I do not expect them to find the aggressors, I’m nobody, I’m just a tourist, but I feel fortunate to stay alive, ” she told the Canadian press, which published the story.
This area is one of the few in Mexico that is not on the list of travel alerts issued by the United States government for its citizens . However, Nayarit was one of the states where insecurity increased most in the last two years.
