France24 News published October 24, 2023: At least 24 dead, including 12 police officers, in southwest Mexico. Three separate armed attacks in Mexico on Monday left at least 24 people dead, including a dozen police officers, authorities said about the latest violence to hit regions plagued by drug trafficking. Drug crops including marijuana and opium poppies used to make heroin are grown in these areas, FRANCE 24's correspondent Ioan Grillo said, pointing out that the recent rise of synthetic drugs such as fentanyl has led to losses for heroin producers.
France24 News
written by AFP staff
Tuesday October 24, 2023
Acapulco – Three separate armed attacks in Mexico on Monday left at least 24 people dead, including a dozen police officers, authorities said about the latest violence to hit regions plagued by drug trafficking.
In the deadliest incident, unidentified attackers targeted a security patrol in Guerrero state's municipality of Coyuca de Benitez, prosecutor Alejandro Hernandez said.
At least 13 people were killed and two others wounded in that attack, the state prosecutor's office said in a statement, with Hernandez earlier having confirmed that at least 11 of those killed were members of the municipal police force.
A senior state security official was traveling in the convoy when it was attacked, authorities said, without confirming media reports that he was murdered along with police bodyguards.
Security forces were later seen patrolling the area -- where several lifeless bodies lay on the ground -- as a police helicopter flew overhead.
Another attack, in the neighboring state of Michoacan, left four civilians and a policeman dead, and two others wounded, authorities said.
A group of gunmen had attacked the brother of the mayor of the town of Tacambaro, according to the state prosecutor's office.
A restaurant worker and a member of the police force were among those killed, while the mayor's brother was wounded, it said.
In a video posted on social media, gunmen were seen opening fire before fleeing in several vehicles.
A third attack on Monday, a gunfight between alleged drug dealers in the central Mexican state of Puebla, left at least six dead and two wounded, the regional government reported.
The incident took place in the rural community of San Miguel Canoa, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) from Mexico City.
Mexico is plagued by cartel-related bloodshed that has seen more than 420,000 people murdered since the government deployed the military in its war on drugs in 2006.
Since then, the country's murder rate has tripled to 25 per 100,000 inhabitants.
Mexico has also registered more than 110,000 disappearances since 1962, most attributed to criminal organizations.
Guerrero and Michoacan are among the country's most violent areas, due to confrontations between rival drug traffickers and security forces.
Although it is home to the famed coastal resort of Acapulco, Guerrero is one of Mexico's poorest states.
Violence -- particularly targeting low-level officials -- often escalates across the country in the run-up to elections. Presidential and parliamentary polls are set to be held next year.
Even so, experts said the latest wave of violence was particularly shocking.
"Guerrero has long seen one of Mexico's most complicated armed conflicts, but the current, pre-electoral levels of violence are extraordinary," Falko Ernst, an analyst at International Crisis Group, wrote on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
Since taking office in 2018, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has championed a "hugs not bullets" strategy to tackle violent crime at its roots by fighting poverty and inequality with social programs, rather than with the army.
ARB24 English published October 24, 2023: 19 killed in day of bloodshed in southwest Mexico, including police and officials. A local security secretary and 12 police officers were shot dead in Guerrero state Monday, authorities said, the worst episode in a day of violence across southwestern Mexico that killed at least 19 people.
Sky News published August 1, 2018: On the frontline of Mexico's drug war.
Mexico's official murder rate last year was nearly 30,000 people. The worst year since the government started counting bodies 20 years ago.
It is widely assumed that this is almost entirely caused by the drug wars raging between the country's Narco Cartels and the government.
Murdering business or political opponents is taking over from legal action and the ballot box.
We travelled to one of the worst hit areas in Mexico, the formerly glamorous playground of the wealthy, Acapulco, to see what is happening to society and why it has become so violent.
KSAT.com
written by Staff
Monday October 24, 2023
MEXICO CITY – A local security secretary and 12 police officers were shot dead in Guerrero state Monday, authorities said, the worst episode in a day of violence across southwestern Mexico that killed at least 19 people.
Another person was slain in the Guerrero state capital and five people, including a police officer, were killed in the neighboring state of Michoacan, officials said.
Eleven people were initially reported killed in the attack in El Papayo, which is in the Guerrero township of Coyuca de Benítez on the Pacific Coast. Hours later, the state prosecutor’s office said two more police officers had died.
The secretary for security of Coyuca de Benítez was among those slain, said Gabriel Hernández Mendoza, state deputy prosecutor for investigations. He gave no further details.
Rigoberto Acosta González, an academic and community leader, was reported shot to death in Chilpancingo, the Guerrero state capital 60 miles (95 kilometers) northeast of Coyuca de Benitez.
In Michoacan, north of Guerrero, at least five people, including a police officer, were fatally shot and two others were injured, the office of the state’s attorney general said on X, formerly Twitter.
Officials are finding themselves increasingly endangered in the region, where several powerful drug cartels continue to fight for control. According to figures from Common Cause, 341 police officers have been killed in Mexico so far this year. In 2022, at least 403 were slain.
In the Michoacan incident, the bodies of the five slain people were found on a highway in the township of Tacambaro after an attack targeted the mayor’s brother. The state prosecutor’s office did not say if the mayor’s brother was among the wounded.
A video of the attack circulating on social media appeared to show heavy gunfire, followed by at least five armed men running to board a pickup truck.
Despite the government sending more than 2,000 National Guard troops and military personnel last month, Michoacan remains one of the deadliest states in Mexico, according to the national security department.
Several criminal groups are known to operate in the region, including the powerful Jalisco New Generation cartel, the Familia Michoacana, the Viagras and the Knights Templar.
Gun violence has also spilled over into neighboring areas. On Sunday, a shootout at an illegal horse race killed five people and wounded five others in Queretaro, a central state on the northeastern border of Michoacan.
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