Gunmen killed at least 20 people at a clandestine cockfighting ring in Mexico, in what President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday described as a “massacre” involving rival criminal gangs.
The attack happened on Sunday night in the town of Las Tinajas in Michoacan, a western state plunged into violence by turf wars between rival drug cartels.
The attorney general’s office said the lifeless bodies of 16 men and three women were found at the scene, all bearing gunshot wounds.
An additional person died on the way to hospital, while another five were being treated for injuries, it later said.
Michoacan’s public security office said authorities were working to track down those responsible for the shooting at the venue, used for cockfighting, concerts and dancing.
President Lopez Obrador said that the attack was “a massacre by one group against another.”
Mexico has been trapped in a spiral of cartel-related bloodshed since 2006, when the government launched a controversial anti-drug operation with federal troops. The violence has since claimed more than 340,000 lives, most of them lost to organized crime, according to official figures.
Michoacan is one of Mexico’s most violent states due to clashes between rival gangs involved in drug trafficking and other illegal activities.
Several powerful drug-trafficking gangs such as the Jalisco New Generation and Los Viagras cartels operate in Michoacan and battle each other for control of strategic territory.
Picture of police vehicles torched by gunmen who also killed 14 police officers in an ambush in the community of Aguililla, in the Mexican state of Michoacan, on Monday. Photo: VCG
