MEXICO CITY, May 8 (Xinhua) -- Tens of thousands of Mexicans marched through the capital Sunday in the final hours of a four-day march calling for peace and justice and demanding an end to the violence related to drugs and organized crime that has left thousands of people dead in the country over the last four years.
Organizers said an estimated 50,000 people took to the streets Sunday afternoon when the march concluded at Mexico City's main Zocalo plaza in the historical center of the town.
Mexican television stations reported that as many as 300,000 people had participated in similar marches held nationwide from Oaxaca state in southern Mexico to the northern state of Ciudad Juarez bordering the United States.
Mexican poet Javier Sicilia said "we have to replace the security strategy for the country," adding that new security laws currently being adopted and implemented by the Mexican Congress and Senate need to be evaluated carefully in order to find lasting solutions to the violence. He also called for Public Security Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna to resign on Sunday.
Sicilia, the main organizer of Sunday's march, has become one of the leading activists in Mexico following the death last April of his son, who was killed together with six friends in drug-related violence near Cuernavaca in Morelos state, some 60 km south of the capital.
No violent incidents were reported in the march, Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard told reporters, adding that over 9,000 security personnel were deployed by city authorities to ensure the safety of the people participating in the march, which was conducted in complete silence.
"We want to hear a message from the president of the Republic with that resignation, saying, he heard us," said Sicilia, who previously called on the president to make a deal with the country's warring drug cartels to avoid the slayings of innocent bystanders.
President Felipe Calderon, who last week called for nation unity in the face of drug cartel and organized crime violence and has rejected calls to forge agreements with criminal groups, issued a statement saying he supports the march and its goals of promoting peace.
"We are as citizens all sharing responsibility to confront the organized crime and part of this is to participate in these kind of activities," said Isabel Miranda de Wallace, president of the civil organization "End to Kidnapping."
Over 37,000 people have died in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon declared war on drug cartels and organized crime shortly after taking office in December 2006. The war on drugs is the bloodiest conflict to engulf Mexico since the 1910-1917 Revolution.
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