More than a dozen gunmen shot dead 11 people, including eight women, at a Mexican hotel and its two bars in a cartel war-related massacre, according to authorities and reports.
Coordinated attacks in the central Mexican city of Celaya resulted in more than 50 shots fired in an ambush that lasted less than a minute, according to local television network Telemundo 20.
Some of the 15 hooded gunmen also threw Molotov cocktails at bars, with one of the establishments badly burned.
Disturbing photos on social media showed women crammed into puddles of blood between tables, with a body on the sidewalk.
Seven women and three men were pronounced dead at the scene, and an eleventh victim, another woman, later died at a hospital, according to security and government officials. As many as five others were injured, according to local reports.
Pieces of cardboard with messages “alluding to a criminal group” were found at the scene, local security officials said in a statement.
Eight of the victims of the shooting were women.REUTERS
Photos posted on social media suggest the killers were from the Santa Rosa de Lima gang, apparently accusing the bar owners of supporting Jalisco’s rival cartel, according to The Associated Press.
The bloodbath came just hours after three dismembered bodies were found inside plastic bags, which also contained warning messages left on cardboard, according to Telemundo 20.
The Mexican National Guard, the Ministry of Defense and Guanajuato State security forces were looking for the gunmen, security officials said.
Photos of the scene suggest that the shooters accused the bar owners of supporting a rival gang. REUTERS
Guanajuato has become one of the most violent regions in Mexico in recent years as drug gangs fight for control.
Government figures show that there were 993 homicides in the first four months of 2022 in Guanajuato, making it the second highest total behind the western state of Michoacan.
In March, the charred bodies of seven people were found abandoned in a van in Celaya, the Agence France-Presse reported.
Wars between rival cartels have made Guanajuato one of the most violent regions in Mexico. REUTERS
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.
Despite the worrying increase in gang killings, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has advocated a strategy of “hugs and not bullets”, arguing that violent crime should be addressed by focusing on the fight against poverty and inequality with social programs, rather than with the military.
With post cables