At least six people were killed and five others injured in an armed attack on a bar on the outskirts of Mexico City on Sunday evening, less than 24 hours after another killing that claimed the lives of seven men and three women in center of the country, local authorities reported Monday.
• Also read: Ten people killed in armed attack on bar in Mexico
This second shooting targeted the “Bling Bling” in Cuautitlan Izcalli, in the suburbs of the capital, barely a few hours after the assassination of ten people in a bar in Querétaro (center) on the night of Saturday to Sunday.
“It is reported that six people died and five others were injured, in stable condition,” Cuautiltan Izcalli town hall said in a statement.
“This tragedy, the second in a single weekend, once again shows the serious security crisis hitting the country and the inability of the authorities to protect citizens,” reacted opposition leader Alejandro Moreno. the president of the PRI, in power for 70 years until 2000, then from 2012 to 2018.
On Saturday evening, ten people were killed in an attack on a bar by an armed commando in Querétaro, a town 200 km north of the capital, which has so far been spared the violence.
President Claudia Sheinbaum promised more information Tuesday morning on the killing. Querétaro Mayor Felipe Fernando “Felifer” Macias spoke of an attack that targeted “delinquents.”
The state of Querétaro was a relative haven of tranquility compared to many other states in Mexico, starting with its neighbor Guanajuato, the entity which records the most annual homicides (3,746 in 2023 according to official figures) .
“The ‘pax narca’ in Querétaro is coming to an end,” said security expert David Saucedo in a blog.
According to him, at least two cartels have decided to extend their criminal activities to the state of the same name as its capital: Jalisco nueva generacion, one of the two most powerful in the country, and Santa Rosa de Lima, active in Guanajuato neighbor.
Armed with assault rifles
The four perpetrators of this first shooting, in Querétaro, arrived in a van on Saturday evening, armed with assault rifles, according to what can be seen on a surveillance camera video made public.
“Four armed people arrived with long-range weapons aboard a van” in Querétaro, said Juan Luis Ferrusca Ortiz in a video posted on At least seven others were injured.
Three women were among the victims, according to the Querétaro state prosecutor’s office.
A person is in police custody who will be referred to the General Prosecutor’s Office of the State of Querétaro, added the security official.
The attackers arrived in a vehicle whose license plate number was identified, he said. The vehicle was set on fire “by the alleged perpetrators”.
The facts are corroborated by video surveillance images broadcast by Mexican media. At least four attackers get out of a car parked with the doors open in front of the bar they burst into, according to a first recording.
On the terrace, customers run away or throw themselves to the ground to escape the gunshots, under huts, in the blue light of the projectors, according to another recording which shows images of the party being brutally interrupted.
The “Los Cantaritos” bar is located on the circular boulevard which surrounds the historic center of Querétaro, a magnificent colonial city which hosted at the beginning of September as every year the Mexican edition of the “Hay festival”, a meeting of artists and intellectuals.
Capture taken from a surveillance camera video made public | Reuters
The state of Querétaro and its capital of the same name are generally spared the violence linked to drug trafficking or rivalry between criminal gangs.
“The entire security system of Querétaro is mobilized to find the criminals,” promised state governor Mauricio Kuri on his X account.
“We will continue to protect our borders and maintain security in our state,” he added. “Those responsible for this brutal act will be punished.”
Querétaro is led by the National Action Party (PAN, right-wing opposition) like its neighbor Guanajuato, the most violent state among the country’s 32 entities in terms of the number of annual homicides.
«Mexicanisation»
“There are four criminal groups that have been operating in Querétaro for several years,” analyzes security expert David Saucedo, noting that the modus operandi of Saturday evening’s drama resembles the violence in the neighboring state of Guanajuato.
“That is to say attacks against bars or restaurants, whether to “collect the rent” (extortion by criminal groups on the owners, Editor’s note), or because in these spaces, a rival group sells drugs,” according to Mr. Saucedo.
Violence has not decreased since the inauguration of the new left-wing president Claudia Sheinbaum on October 1, including a mayor beheaded at the beginning of October in Guerrero (south), where eleven bodies were found in a car this week.
A controversy has erupted in France where officials of the new government denounce the “Mexicanization” of the territory to talk about the increase in violence linked to drug trafficking.
In a press release, the Mexican embassy in Paris regretted the use of this expression which “contributes to stigmatizing and stereotyping Mexico”.
The embassy emphasizes “the great efforts made by the Mexican government to confront situations of violence in certain points of its territory.”
