Eleven people, eight of them women, were killed in simultaneous attacks on two bars in north-central Mexico, authorities said on Tuesday.
Handwritten signs left at the scene of the killings suggest that the attacks were part of a rivalry between two drug cartels fighting for control of Guanajuato state for several years.
Celaya city police said the attacks took place on Monday afternoon at two bars on the same street. They said 10 of the victims died at the scene, and another was pronounced dead at a hospital later.
A member of the National Guard walks towards the soldiers chatting at the scene where gunmen opened fire on two bars and killed at least 11 people in Celaya, Mexico, on May 23, 2022. STRINGER / REUTERS
More than a dozen gunmen took part in the attack, Mexican newspaper El Universal reported.
Police confirmed that messages were left at the scene, but did not confirm what they said. But photos posted on social media suggested the killers were from the Santa Rosa de Lima gang. The messages appeared to accuse the bar owners of supporting Jalisco’s rival cartel, which the Justice Department considers “one of the five most dangerous transnational criminal organizations in the world.”
The photos showed women – it was not clear if they were bar employees or customers – crammed into puddles of blood between tables. Part of a bar also appeared to have been partially burned.
Guanajuato, a thriving industrial region that is home to a major refinery and oil pipeline, has become one of the most violent states in Mexico due to a cartel dispute. Gangs are fighting for control of drug trafficking and stolen fuel.
In March, the charred bodies of seven people were found abandoned in a van in Celaya.
And in January, six members of a family were killed in a rural community in the state of Guanajuato, the fifth such attack in the municipality of Silao in four months.
In March, 20 people were shot dead in a place often used to host illegal betting on cockfights in the neighboring state of Michoacan. Among the victims was an American mother of four.
Since December 2006, when the government launched a controversial military anti-drug operation, Mexico has recorded more than 340,000 killings, according to official figures.
In April, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirmed that Mexico had disbanded a special unit trained by U.S. authorities to fight drug cartels because it was infiltrated by criminals.
AFP contributed to this report.