Gunmen killed 10 people including children in an attack on a house in a central Mexican city plagued by cartel-related violence, authorities said Wednesday.
Several others were wounded in the shooting on Tuesday night in Irapuato in Guanajuato state, the municipal government said in a statement.
“According to preliminary data, 10 people lost their lives and several more were injured by firearm projectiles,” the local civil security office said in a statement on social media.
Local media reported the shooting happened during a religious celebration, according to the Reuters news agency.
Children were among the victims of the “deplorable” attack, President Claudia Sheinbaum told her morning news conference, adding that authorities had launched an investigation.
“It is an appalling multiple homicide,” Sheinbaum said, according to Reuters.
Guanajuato is a thriving industrial hub and home to several popular tourist destinations, but it is also Mexico’s deadliest state due to gang turf wars, according to official homicide statistics.
Criminal violence, most of it linked to drug trafficking, has claimed around 480,000 lives in Mexico since 2006 and left more than 120,000 people missing.
Much of the violence in Guanajuato is linked to conflict between the Santa Rosa de Lima gang and the Jalisco New Generation cartel, one of the most powerful in the Latin American nation. The Jalisco cartel is one of several that has been designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the Trump administration.
Guanajuato recorded more than 3,000 murders last year, the most of any Mexican state, according to official figures.
The bloodshed has continued this year.
Last month, investigators said they found 17 bodies in an abandoned house in Guanajuato. Just days before that, officials said gunmen opened fire and killed seven people, including children, in the same state, and officers found two banners with messages alluding to the Santa Rosa de Lima gang.
In February, five women and three men were shot dead in the street in Guanajuato. The month before that, security forces clashed with gunmen in the state, leaving 10 suspected criminals dead and three police officers injured.
