A family of six, including three children, was killed Friday by gunmen in the southern Mexican border state of Chiapas, in a city marred by cartel-backed militia violence.
Julio Pérez, the mayor of the town of Pantelho in Chiapas, said the killings took place there on Friday, calling it “a massacre.” Two warring militias suspected of being backed by drug cartels battle for control of the city.
In a brief statement, the prosecutor’s office said three suspects have been arrested, but neither the victims nor those arrested have been identified.
It was the latest in a series of mass killings in which assassins have wiped out entire families in Mexico.
On Sunday, gunmen stormed a house in the north-central state of Guanajuato killed four women and two children.
Daniel Diaz/photo alliance via Getty Images
Both Chiapas, which shares a border with Guatemala, and Guanajuato have been hit by bloody fights between gangs in recent years.
Local media reported that the gunmen entered the house in the town of Leon, Guanajuato, looking for a male member of the family. When they found out that he had already fled, they killed the women and children.
The killings in Guanajuato have drawn special attention because of surveillance camera footage showed five National Guard officers entered the house five minutes before the murders took place. They left the house with a large black plastic bag just before the killers arrived.
On Friday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said five officers of the quasi-military National Guard had been detained for violations of military discipline and taken into custody by the Defense Ministry, but he declined to provide more details on the case.
Chiapas, where the family was killed on Friday, has been plagued by recent violence, especially in the weeks leading up to the June 2 presidential election.
Last month, officials said two attacks on mayoral candidates in Mexico’s elections remained nine people dead in Chiapas. A few days before, six people, including a minor and mayoral candidate Lucero Lopez, were killed in an ambush after a campaign rally in Chiapas. Around the same time, 11 people were killed in mass shootings in a village in the municipality of Chicomuselo, Chiapas.
The situation in Chiapas has deteriorated due to a war between the Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa cartels in a region known as La Frailesca, which also includes Villa Corzo and La Concordia.
Claudia Sheinbaum became the first wife to win the country’s presidency earlier this month. Two female politicians have been murdered in Mexico since Sheinbaum’s historic elections.
