Is Netflix drama Somos. based on a true story?

"Somos.’s characters show another side of a story we’ve seen so often on screen. Instead of the narco or the cop with the gun, we turn the camera around on the extra in the corner," says series creator and executive producer James Schamus.

"The people who hover around the borders of the screen - those are the people at the centre of Somos... In our series, you get to know what’s important to a young teenager, a mother, a firefighter, a rancher. We want those things to be important for you [the viewer] too, regardless of the encroaching tragedy."

Read on for everything you need to know about the real-life inspiration behind Somos..

What is the true story behind Somos.?

“Somos.” is the "untold story of Allende", Coahuila, a Mexican town close to the Texas border. In March 2011, the town suffered a massacre by one of Mexico’s most dangerous cartels, in response to an infiltration by the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration).

The series draws inspiration from the ProPublica investigation, which includes numerous written and oral testimonies from witnesses, Allende residents, and members of the local authorities, the DEA, and the Zetas cartel.

The investigation revealed that the massacre was "triggered" by a DEA operation gone wrong: agents managed to secure "trackable cellphone identification numbers for two of the cartel’s most wanted kingpins, Miguel Ángel Treviño and his ​brother Omar".

However, the agency's possession of these numbers was shared with Mexican police, and the information was later leaked. When the Treviños discovered they had been betrayed, the cartel took revenge.

Houses were looted and burnt. Men, women, and children were among those kidnapped and killed, their bodies burnt. Over a single day, emergency authorities received 250 phone calls, but interviewees cited in the article claim that no one ever arrived to help.

A single family, the Garzas, lost almost 20 members due to their links to the cartel, including an 81-year-old woman and a seven-month-old baby, both believed to be among the dead.

Writing in a Netflix blog post, series creator and executive producer James Schamus explained why the on-screen characters in Somos., while inspired by real-life testimonies, are fictional.

"Although Somos. is grounded in true stories, it is essentially a fiction. We didn’t want the people in Allende to worry that we might be misremembering or misrepresenting real people. So we took elements from many stories, and then created new characters to enact and expand upon them. In this way, everyone in Allende will still see themselves and their neighbors in the series. But through these fictions we hope to add to their - and to our - shared reality, and in this way help that reality becomes a bigger part of the conversation," he wrote.

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He continued, "It is not coincidental that the majority of key creative leaders on the series are women, for it is mainly women who spoke most fearlessly in [ProPublica journalist] Ginger Thompson’s oral history, and women who continue to lead the effort to memorialize and account for the events on which Somos. is based."

The ProPublica investigation also revealed that the exact death toll is still unknown, with estimates ranging from 300 people killed to 28 (the official number).

No one connected to the massacre has been charged with murder.

Somos. is released on Wednesday 30th June 2021 on Netflix. Looking for something else to watch? Check out our guide to the best series on Netflix and best movies on Netflix, visit our TV Guide, or take a look at the rest of our Drama coverage.