Gunmen massacred a family of six, including three children, in the southern Mexican border state of Chiapas, a town known for cartel-backed militia violence.
Julio Pérez, the mayor of Pantelho, Chiapas, described the fatalities on Friday as “a massacre.” Drug cartels, suspected of supporting two rival militia groups, have been fighting for control of the town.
Related posts
In a brief statement, the state prosecutor’s office announced the arrest of three suspects but did not identify the victims or the detainees.
It was the latest in a series of mass assassinations in Mexico in which hitmen killed entire families.
Gunmen stormed into a residence in Guanajuato, north-central Mexico, on Sunday, killing four women and two children.
In recent years, both Chiapas and Guanajuato, which share a border with Guatemala, have seen brutal gang territorial conflicts.
According to local media, the gunmen entered the residence in Leon, Guanajuato, in search of a male family member. When they discovered he had already escaped, they slaughtered the women and children.
The Guanajuato killings have received special attention because surveillance camera footage captured five National Guard officers entering the home five minutes before the deaths occurred. They fled the house with a large black plastic bag just before the assassins arrived.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced on Friday that the Defense Department had imprisoned five officers of the quasi-military National Guard for violating military discipline, but he declined to provide any details about the case.
Recent violence has plagued Chiapas, where the family’s death occurred on Friday, especially in the weeks before the June 2 presidential election.
Last month, officials said that two attacks targeting mayoral candidates in Mexico’s elections killed nine people in Chiapas. A few days earlier, an attack in Chiapas claimed the lives of six people, including Lucero Lopez, a minor and mayoral candidate. A mass shooting in the township of Chicomuselo, Chiapas, claimed the lives of 11 individuals around the same time.
The situation in Chiapas has deteriorated as a result of the conflict between the Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa cartels in the La Frailesca region, which encompasses Villa Corzo and La Concordia.
Earlier this month, the country elected Claudia Sheinbaum as its first female president. Since Sheinbaum’s historic election, Mexico has seen the deaths of two female politicians.
