MEXICO CITY (AP) — The organizer of a Christmas market in southern Mexico was killed during a holiday event in his city, authorities said late Tuesday.
The governor of the southern state of Guerrero said gunmen killed the organizer of the annual Christmas and New Year’s market in the capital Chilpancingo.
Gov. Evelyn Salgado called the killing of Martín Ramírez Ruíz on Christmas Eve “an unacceptable act that will not go unpunished.” Salgado wrote on her social media accounts that prosecutors were investigating the crime.
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There was no immediate information about the motive, but the gangs make much of their income by extorting money from local businesses and routinely killing those who refuse to pay.
In a separate statement, prosecutors said that another person in addition to Ramírez Ruíz was killed, and that a third person in the crowd that had gathered outside a church was injured in the attack. The gunmen had apparently waded into the crowd and targeted Ramírez Ruíz directly.
Ramírez Ruíz was the head of the citizens’ group that for almost two centuries has organized an arts, food and crafts fair that runs from about Christmas to January 7. The fair also honors the local patron saint, St. Matthew.
Two rival drug gangs, the Tlacos and the Ardillos, are fighting for control of the city of Chilpancingo, and violence against officials and residents there has reached horrific levels.
In November, a former prosecutor and a local police officer were arrested in connection with the gruesome beheading of the city’s mayor on October 6.
Mayor Alejandro Arcos was assassinated just a week after taking office as mayor of the capital. Officials had attributed the killing to one of the gangs.
The mayor’s body was found in a pickup truck, with his severed head on the roof of the vehicle, in an apparent message from the gang.
The same gang is said to be responsible for the murder of eleven market vendors, including four boys, at the end of October.
The vendors, members of an extended family, were kidnapped while traveling to sell their wares. Their bodies were found in the bed of a pickup truck on a laneway in Chilpancingo.
Chilpancingo, a city of about 300,000, is so completely dominated by gangs that in 2023 one of them organized a demonstration of hundreds of people, hijacked a government armored car, blocked a major highway and took police hostage to secure the release of arrested suspects to achieve. .
Violence in Guerrero reached such unprecedented levels that earlier this year Roman Catholic bishops announced they had helped broker a truce in another part of the state between two warring drug cartels.
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