M.G.
8. 1. 2025, 11.10
Updated: 8/1/2025, 11:34 AM
On Monday, security forces in one of the most dangerous states, Guanajuato, Mexico, clashed with armed members of a drug cartel. State forces were more successful, killing ten suspected criminals while injuring only three police officers, authorities said.
To start the new week, a mass shooting between a joint police and military patrol and a large number of armed assailants, believed to be cartel members, broke out Monday morning in the municipality of Yuriria in Guanajuato, a central industrial region home to warring drug cartels. This time the criminals cut short: the state security department in Guanajuato initially said eight armed attackers had been killed, but later changed the number when two more bodies were found with gunshot wounds. “With this discovery, we confirm that we have neutralized 10 members (criminal gangs),” they wrote.
During the clash, security personnel used “legitimate and proportionate force“, in which three officers suffered but non-life-threatening injuries, the statement said. A dozen firearms were seized along with several stolen vehicles and ballistic vests, they added.
An inexorable and unstoppable wave of violence
More than 450,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since the government deployed the military in 2006 to fight human trafficking, according to official figures. The wave of violence shows no signs of abating, even after she took power on October 1 last year Claudia Sheinbaumthe first female president in the history of Mexico. Sheinbaum ruled out declaring war on the cartels, instead suggesting a continuation of her predecessor’s strategy of using social policy to fight crime at its roots while making better use of intelligence.
Bloody Guanajuato
Guanajuato, an industrial and agricultural center, has for many years led the number of murders among all 32 Mexican states. The Jalisco cartel and the local Santa Rosa de Lima gang have been embroiled in a multi-year power struggle in the region. Just last month, eight people were killed and two were wounded after gunmen stormed a roadside stand in Guanajuato and opened fire on customers and bystanders.
On October 4 last year, the bodies of 12 killed policemen were found in different areas of Salamanca, a city in Guanajuato. All bore signs of torture, and next to the bodies were threatening messages from the cartels, automatically claiming responsibility for the act. Cartel members often leave messages on victims’ bodies to threaten rivals or punish behavior they believe violates their rules.
The bodies of the officers were found less than 24 hours after cartel members attacked a residential center for drug addicts in the same municipality, killing four people. In June, a baby and a toddler were murdered among six members of the same family in Guanajuato. In April, a mayoral candidate was gunned down on the street in Guanajuato, just as she was launching her campaign.
In light of these events, the US State Department is urging Americans to reconsider traveling to Guanajuato. “Of particular concern is the high number of murders in the southern region of the country linked to violence stemming from cartels,” they wrote.
Source: svet24.si
