Crime & Justice

16 Found slain in northern Mexico

Mexico City, Feb 5 (EFE).- Sixteen bodies were found dumped Saturday in two municipalities in the north-central Mexican state of Zacatecas, authorities said.

In Fresnillo, the state’s second largest city, residents of the Pardillo III neighborhood alerted police to the presence of 10 bodies wrapped in blankets, the Zacatecas Attorney General’s Office said in a statement.

The bodies were lying on the street at intervals of roughly 10 meters (33 ft), suggesting that they were tossed from a moving vehicle.

People in Panfilo Natera, east of Zacatecas city, the state capital, woke up to the sight of six dead men hanging from a railing at a warehouse.

Soldiers and members of Mexico’s National Guard joined state and municipal police in a search for the perpetrators, Zacatecas AG Office said.

In a video posted online, state Gov. David Monreal said that the preliminary investigation indicates the 16 victims were “members of rival criminal groups.”

Last November, amid massacres and execution-style killings due to battles for supremacy among drug cartels, the federal government deployed personnel from the military and various law enforcement agencies as part of Plan Zacatecas.

That plan “has delivered results in the reduction of crime, but it also has generated an escalation in violence,” the governor said, apparently suggesting that greater pressure on the cartels was intensifying competition among them. EFE jmrg/dr

Related Articles

Back to top button